
it, B i z aboth Powe 3 i Bond 
































































■ ’ 





















































































































-• 


































































. 





















































WORDS BY THE WAY 

(SECOND SERIES) 


BY 

t»rrs, ELIZABETH ^POWELLi BOND 


Stoartjimort, 

THE AUTHOR 


1901 

‘ 4 



Vi'AM! H.tl C 










« 


9 





« • • 

« 











.VITHDRAWN 


16 1919 



*mxs$cr 

* Ds*ae-4yft2c. 




to The 

ibttrtinits of i&toartbmorc College, 

FOR WHOSE GUIDANCE THESE 'WORDS’* HAVE 
SOUGHT UTTERANCE. 




* 






dontents. 


The Christmas Spirit, -.i 

The School oe Christ, - 7 

The Spiritual Life, - - - - 17 

Launch out into the Deep, - 24 

A Humble Teacher, .36 

The Root of Courtesy,.44 

A Spring Parable,.53 

Co-operation,.- 61 

God, Everywhere,.70 

The Baptism of the Spirit, .... 76 

Learning to be Glad,.82 

A Forward Look,.89 

“ Children of Light,”.98 

The Ministry of the Sabbath, - - - 103 

The Example,.113 

He that Overcometh,.121 

The Thought of the Heart, - - - - 129 

The Stigmata, ------- 136 

The Great Benediction,.145 

The Bread of Liee, ------ 154 

(v) 








































leitatls faj tlxc Way 










®l)e (Iljristmas Spirit. 


Wk are yet in the glow of Christmas joys. 
Days of work, and hours of pleasure, and anxious 
cares have not yet had time to dim the brightness 
of the happy festival. Close about us are the 
beautiful signs of hearts’ loves that at Christmas 
time express themselves in the uncounted ways 
that fingers and forethought know. Our eyes 
delight themselves in a wished-for picture, or 
treasured book—it may be in the simplest written 
word of affectionate remembrance, and the day is 
brightened. And then there is the other delight 
—not in what has come to us—but in what it has 
been in our power to put into other lives. This 
is a blessed part of the Christmas glow. Do we 
need to move on and away from the Christmas 
glow that we yet feel in our hearts ? How would 
it be with us if we cherished it every day of the 


2 


Words by the Way. 


year ? It would not be required that every day 
should be marked in the calendar, by exchange 
of outward gifts, but that which endures of any 
gift—that which fire cannot burn nor ‘ ‘ moth 
corrupt,”—how we might pour out upon each 
other of the blessed spirit of gift-giving for solace 
and encouragement! If the Christmas spirit 
could look out of our eyes upon each other as we 
pass upon halls or streets, all the months that 
stretch from Christmas to Christmas, how our 
burdens would be made light, how the hard 
things in life would be eased ! If the Christmas 
spirit that has guided our fingers in taking 
dainty stitches, and deftly shaping things of use 
and beauty, and choosing the fit thing for the 
beloved one, could possess our hands till Christ¬ 
mas day came round again, would they ever be 
raised to place hindering things in one another’s 
way? When the Christmas glow has gone out 
of the day, how we hurt each other with thought¬ 
less word and thoughtless deed ! O, can we not 
keep it, to make the cheer and gladness which is 


The Christmas Spirit. 


3 


the best atmosphere for souls to grow in ! It is 
not work that makes the young grow old, and 
the elders falter by the way; we were made for 
work, as the trees and the stars are, as God him¬ 
self is ; it is more often the worry that we need¬ 
lessly and thoughtlessly thrust into the lives of 
others. 

With the ChrivStmas gift-giving we have learned 
again the story of the babe in the manger, and 
the life given for the uplifting of men. It is true 
that the babe in the manger, the unconscious 
little one, accepted the adoration of men—the 
wise men brought their gifts of gold, and frank¬ 
incense, and myrrh, and fell down and wor¬ 
shiped him. But when he came to manhood, 
after those years in which it is recorded that he 
was subject to his father and mother, when the 
few disciples gathered about him for instructions 
concerning the work he was sending them out to 
do, did he seek then for adoration? Did he 
command them: “Go now into every city, and 
see to it that a shining temple is built for my 


4 


Words by the Way. 


glorification. Gold and precious stones shall be 
its adornment. Great choirs shall sing my 
praises, and chant in adoration of the wonderful 
works that I do! ” How different his message 
to the disciples: “Heal the sick, cleanse the 
lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.” No 
thought or word about himself,—every thought 
and word for the suffering and needy about him. 
After the lapse of centuries, can we believe that 
this Kingly Soul cares any more than in those 
far-away days, for adoration of himself ? During 
this Christmas week, cathedrals have rung with 
his praises, and great congregations have sung 
of the Messiah. I believe this adoration never 
reaches his ear. That which touches his soul is 
the service that we render to one another. The 
dressing of a doll for a college settlement child; 
the kindly remembrance to one easily forgotten; 
the expression of love for our dearest ones; the 
thoughtfulness that checks disturbing noise; that 
consideration for others that saves the scraps of 
paper for the waste-basket instead of scattering 


The Christmas Spirit. 


5 


them over the floor; the beautiful courtesy that 
“ loves itself last ”—can we doubt that these are 
the things to make the Christmas anthem that 
can give joy even in the heights of Heaven, and 
gladden the heart of the Divine ! Hear this 
other word to the disciples: “If ye love me ”— 
is it “sing praises to my name”; “build up 
systems of theology upon my birth and death; ” 
excommunicate such as do not see eye to eye 
with you;” “make holy war upon such as are 
not of your faith ”—is that the message ? “ If ye 
love me, keep my commandments .” It is the 
keeping of these commandments that is not only 
the acceptable sign of love for the great Teacher, 
but the hope of the world. These command¬ 
ments are not vague, “glittering generalities,” 
let fall upon the air to be speedily lost. They 
are clear, explicit commands that address them¬ 
selves to each one of us, to be construed accord¬ 
ing to the circumstances of each life. These 
commands may not touch just the same things in 
my life as in yours; but the commands being 


6 


Words by the Way. 


chiefly of love and service, they bring the same 
spirit into all our lives, and can make our streets 
into heavenly neighborhoods. 

It is a blessing, indeed, to have each year a 
revival of the Christmas spirit—to re-baptize our 
souls in love. Shall we not try to make it a 
daily baptism? Shall we not consecrate our¬ 
selves each morning to loving service, that we 
may be helpers of the work for which Jesus gave 
himself wholly ? 


$l)t School of €l)rist. 


“Tearn of Me,” is an appeal spoken nine¬ 
teen centuries ago. Will you try to make very 
real to your thought the personality of Him who 
uttered this appeal? The Christmas season just 
gone by has left fresh in our minds the beautiful 
story of his birth : the young mother rejoicing in 
motherhood, a multitude of the heavenly host 
praising God and saying, “ Glory to God in the 
highest, on earth peace among men ; ” the shep¬ 
herds guided by a star to the humble birthplace 
in the Bethlehem stable. Scripture and artist 
and poet have brought this beautiful story 
vividly before us. L,et me recall still further the 
story of his visit to Jerusalem to attend with his 
father and mother, when he was twelve y*ears 
old, the feast of the Passover; his absorbing 
interest in the discussions of the doctors in the 
( 7 ) 


8 


Words by the Way. 


temple; his reply to the anxious mother who 
missed him after a day’s journey from Jerusalem 
and turned back to seek him : “ Wist ye not that 
I must be about my Father’s business ? ” 

L,et me recall, too, this bit of the Scripture 
recorded after the visit in Jerusalem : “ He went 
down with them and came to Nazareth, and was 
subject unto them . . . And Jesus increased in 
wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and 
man.” 

For eighteen years the record is silent concern¬ 
ing the details of his life. We are told only this 
—“he was subject unto them ”—he was obedient 
to his parents. He was first obedient before he 
spoke as one having authority. The school of 
obedience is a part of the school of Christ. How 
we long to know more of his life in that obscure 
Galilean home. That he was a pupil of the 
scribes a part of these years, sitting at their feet 
as was the custom of pupils, to learn to read and 
to write their Scripture language, and to be 
instructed in the Taw, we infer from the later 


The School of Christ. 


9 


record. You remember “he came to Nazareth 
where he had been brought up ; and, as his cus¬ 
tom was, he went into the synagogue on the 
Sabbath-day, and stood up for to read." Again, it 
is written : “But Jesus stooped down, and with 
his finger wrote on the ground ’.” His public 
teaching shows that he had mastered the Law. 
There is constantly recurring, “Ye have heard 
that it hath been said by them of old time,” 
“ Have ye not read in the Law ? ” or “ Ye do err, 
not knowing the Scriptures.” He knew student 
life as it belonged to that far-away time. How 
much of mathematics entered into his training 
we do not know, but certainly he knew what it 
was to struggle with the difficulties of the Hebrew 
language, and to make himself familiar with his 
people’s past. Language and history and litera¬ 
ture—the studies now designated the “humani¬ 
ties,” doubtless made up his curriculum. Of the 
recreations of his youth there is no hint. That 
the beauty of the lilies ministered to his soul we 
may believe, since he remembered the lilies when 


IO 


Words by the Way. 


he would minister to other souls. That the 
mountains were places of peace and renewal to 
him we may believe; for when the stress of pub¬ 
lic service came upon him, how often did he lead 
his disciples or go alone to the solitude of the 
mountain. That he was not a recluse but that 
he moved among his fellows and knew how life 
went on about him is constantly evidenced in his 
later teaching. He speaks of the soft clothing of 
those who live in kings’ houses; of the piping 
and dancing in the market-place; of the value of 
pearls which are not to be cast before swine; of 
“gold and silver and brass in your purses.” 
That he knew the blessedness of friendship is to 
be inferred from his intimate relations with 
Martha and Mary and Lazarus in their Bethany 
home where his love restored the brother to his 
sorrowing sisters; where a supper was made for 
him, and Martha served, and Mary anointed his 
feet with the very costly and fragrant ointment 
of spikenard, and wiped his feet with her hair. 
That he worked at the carpenter’s bench with 


The School of Christ. 


II 


his father Joseph, it is fair to infer; because the 
Jews held manual labor in highest respect, and 
their scholars were trained in some occupation 
that would yield a livelihood. Then, wood and 
metal-workers were eligible along with the schol¬ 
ars, to places in the Sanhedrin. 

In these eighteen years of retired life in which 
he was subject to his parents, and sat at the feet 
of the scribes, and performed his duties in the 
synagogue, and mingled with his fellows, we are 
told that he “ increased in wisdom, and in favor 
with God and man.” My mind has dwelt upon 
this beautiful epitome of unwritten history; I 
have tried to realize all it means,—his sweetness, 
and purity, and strength as a youth. And this 
thought has forced itself upon me, Would the 
standards of modern youth pronounce him a 
“goody-goody fellow;” and discover in him a 
lack of what they designate “ nerve ” ? 

His was the teachable spirit. His attitude was 
always that of the young Samuel: “Speak, Tord, 
for thy servant heareth.” The interest at twelve 


12 


Words by the Way. 


years of age in his “Father’s business” was 
prophetic of the mission that was before him at 
thirty. For he had come to be a fresh revelation 
to men of the spirit of God. He had come to re¬ 
vivify the law which Moses had left among men, 
and to translate Jehovah into Father. In his 
youth he sat humbly at the feet of the scribes 
and learned from the law: “Take thee a 3^oung 
calf for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt 
offering, without blemish, and offer them before 
the Ford; ” and this other injunction, “Ye shall 
not afflict any widow or fatherless child.” The 
scribes taught him from the Faw: “Thoushalt 
love the Ford thy God with all thine heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And 
these words, which I command thee this day, 
shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them 
diligently unto thy children. . . And thou 

shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and 
they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes”; 
and they taught him too from the Faw: “ Thou 
shalt love th}' neighbor as thyself.” 


The School of Christ. 


13 


Then, when his days as a pupil were ended, 
there came a day when he had to pronounce 
against the scribes, who perhaps had been his 
teachers, these words of terrible denunciation: 
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo¬ 
crites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a 
pretense make long prayers; ye compass sea and 
land to make one proselyte, and when he is made 
ye make him twofold more the child of hell than 
yourselves; ye pay tithe of mint, anise, and cum¬ 
min (a tenth of their little garden growths), and 
have omitted the weightier matters of the law,— 
judgment, mercy, and faith; ye make clean the 
outside of the cup and the platter, but within 
they are full of extortion and excess.” For the 
pupil had learned not only at the feet of the 
scribes—he had been taught of God. His soul 
■was illumined from the Source of light; and now 
he appealed to the teachers themselves, and to 
all men beside, “ Fearn of me.” He came not 
to destroy the Faw, but to secure its highest 
fulfillment. He saw the provisions of the Faw 


14 


Words by the Way. 


in their right relations and proportions. That 
which was easiest to do, the offering of calves and 
rams for sin offerings, the counting of the threads 
in the tassels at the corners of the mantles, the 
long prayers at the street corners—all these 
things, which were easy to observe because they 
could be done by rule, he relegated to the subor¬ 
dinate place, and taught with every word from 
his lips and every act of the few brief years that 
were left to him that this is the first and great 
commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, 
and with all thy mind. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself.” 

This was the measure that he applied to his 
people, to all their professions of religion in the 
temple service, and to all their social relations. 
The chief priests and rulers among the Jews 
would not be taught by this divinely illumined 
Teacher. To them he was only a “pestilent fel¬ 
low.” “He came to his own, and his own re- 


The School of Christ. 


15 


ceived him not.” But the ministry that in three 
years seemed to end upon the cross, was not 
^silenced. Its simple, vital truths have sounded 
on and on from one generation to another, always 
reaching some quickened ear, and finding accept¬ 
ance in some soul waiting to pass it on. If I 
might, I would print in fadeless letters upon all 
our hearts this appeal of Jesus, “ Learn of me,” 
and along with it the first and greatest command¬ 
ment; and that which he said was the second, 
and like unto it. What a wise Teacher he was, 
to sum up his immortal lesson in two command¬ 
ments that could easily be bound “for a sign 
upon our hands, or as frontlets between our 
eyes.” But no outward sign is needed for those 
who would be members of the school of Christ. 
Their aspiration shines in the light of the eye; the 
voice is modulated to its harmonies. 

The hope of the world lies in its response to 
this appeal. Only as men learn in the school of 
Christ whose great schoolmaster was Jesus, can 
all the wrong things in the world be righted. 


i6 


Words by the Way. 


Only thus can “man’s inhumanity to man” be 
made to cease; thus only may we hope for the 
coming of the kingdom of Heaven. 

Oxford and Cambridge Universities have each 
their Christ College. How beautiful it would be 
if Swarthmore, our beloved college, in its earnest¬ 
ness of student-life; its honor in sports; its cour¬ 
tesy between student and student; its mutual ser¬ 
vice of teacher and taught, might be in very 
truth, a school of Christ. 


®!)e Spiritual £tfe. 


r 


Let us, on this day that celebrates the resur¬ 
rection of Jesus, turn our thoughts toward the 
spiritual life. It has ever been, as it is now, an 
absorbing question. “If a man die shall he live 
again?” We love to live. With all the labor 
and the harassing cares of life ; with all the dis¬ 
couragements, and defeated hopes, and tragic 
ending of human plans, we cling to life. We 
cling to life as we know it. Life is very inter¬ 
esting to us. To-day’s defeat does not often 
dishearten us. We long for another day in 
which to try again for the goal or the prize or 
the perfect plan. The one gift of the gods that 
Pandora held fast in the fateful box, was a beau¬ 
tiful gift, that is really wings for our souls, and 
bears us over hardships and perplexities, to the 
possible triumphs of another day. Not only do 

(17) 


i8 


Words by the Way. 


the interesting things of life make us love life as 
did Mary Somerville, who, past ninety, regretted 
that she could not live to know the result of the 
expedition to determine the currents of the ocean. 
The loves of our hearts fill all the horizon of life. 
If it is immortal life we ask for, it is because we 
are endowed with immortal interests and im¬ 
mortal loves But our physical life has of neces¬ 
sity its limits. 

Let us recall the teaching of Paul. You will 
remember that he took the seed of grain as his 
type of resurrection: 

“But some man will say, How are the dead 
raised up ? and with what body do they come ? 

“Thou foolish one, that which thou so west is 
not quickened, except it die : 

“ And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not 
that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may 
chance of wheat, or of some other grain. 

‘ ‘ But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased 
him, and to every seed his own body. 

“All flesh is not the same flesh: but there 


The Spiritual Life. 


19 


is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of 
beasts. 

‘ ‘ There are also celestial bodies, and bodies 
terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, 
and the glory of the terrestrial is another . . . 

“ So also is the resurrection of the dead . . . 
It is sown in weakness ; it is raised in power. 
It is sown a natural body ; it is raised a spiritual 
body.” 

This is a thought preserved to us from the first 
century of Christianity. It has been accepted as 
a poetic thought—a beautiful simile drawn from 
nature by the great Apostle. But it is confirmed 
in this latest century by the thought of a foremost 
scientist who writes : “We who accept the exist¬ 
ence of a spiritual world, can look upon the uni¬ 
verse as a grand consistent whole, adapted in all 
its parts to the development of spiritual beings 
capable of indefinite life and perfectibility. To 
us, the whole purpose of the world—with all its 
complexities of physical structure, with its grand 
geological progress, the slow evolution of the 


20 


Words by the Way. 


vegetable and animal kingdoms, and the ultimate 
appearance of man—was the development of the 
human spirit in association with the human 
body. From the fact that the spirit of man— 
the man himself —is so developed, we may well 
believe that this is the only, or at least the best, 
way for its development. For we know that the 
noblest faculties of man are strengthened and 
perfected by struggle and effort; it is by unceas¬ 
ing warfare against physical evils and in the 
midst of difficulty and danger that energy, cour¬ 
age, self-reliance, and industry have become the 
common qualities of the northern races ; it is by 
the battle with moral evil in all its hydra-headed 
forms, that the still nobler qualities of justice and 
mercy and humanity and self-sacrifice have been 
steadily increasing in the world. Beings thus 
trained and strengthened by their surroundings, 
and possessing latent faculties capable of such 
noble development, are surely destined for a 
higher and more permanent existence; and we 
may confidently believe with our great poet— 


The Spiritual Life. 


21 


“ That life is not an idle ore, 

But iron dug from central gloom, 

And heated hot with burning fears, 

And dipt in baths of hissing tears, 

And battered with the shocks of doom 
To shape and use.” 

This is the thought of Alfred Russel Wallace, 
whose scientific research has brought him to this 
noble, satisfying conception of man’s destiny. 
One other thought of his I wish I could present 
in his own words. I have seen it stated that he 
declares it as his belief that during this earthly 
life of ours we do evolve the “spiritual body;” 
that from our blood and tissues is formed this 
4 4 spiritual body ’ ’ which death liberates from the 
perishable frame to bear the soul onward to the 
infinite heights of being. Does not this concep¬ 
tion of our earthly life give to it its utmost value 
and dignity ? Can any day be unimportant, can 
any action be insignificant, that must leave its 
impress upon our spiritual body, and so, upon 
our immortal life! To me, this conception takes 


22 


Words by the Way. 


life out of what might easily be a hopeless, dreary 
routine of dead materialism, into the region of 
perennial growth, and unwearying activity and 
unfading joys. If it be true, and I do believe it is, 
that the life I live this day will either dwarf and 
cripple the spiritual body, or will make it beau¬ 
tiful and strong for the spirit’s onward and up¬ 
ward progress, how can I be careless of this day’s 
life ? Can I believe that deceit and folly and un¬ 
faithfulness are elements of immortal life ? Can 
I name these things along with my conception of 
God ? Then, shall I harbor in to-day’s life de¬ 
ceit and folly and unfaithfulness? I name the 
name of God to stand for my highest conception 
of the good, and in this glowing conception are 
revealed truthfulness, earnestness, faithfulness, 
joyfulness. These are the conceptions that will. 
shape this “spiritual body” which is evolving] 
from this day’s life, and will make it strong for 
the immortal life. These are the conceptions 
that swallow up death in victory! 

Some of you miss at this hour the gorgeous 


The Spiritual Life. 


23 


floral adornments and the musical programmes 
arranged in most churches to celebrate the spir¬ 
itual birth of Jesus. I would that I could make 
good to you this sense of loss, in the transform-, 
ing power of this thought of the “spiritual body.” 
Believe me, it has power to make a new earth, 
full of hope and courage and gladness, that shall 
be from day to day a foretaste of that heaven 
whose glories we can but dimly perceive. 


“Canncl) out into tljc ?Dccp.” 


It chanced one day that Jesus found himself 
in a press of people crowding about him lor the 
“word of God.” They were beside Take Gen- 
nesaret where two fishermen had anchored their 
boats after a night of fruitless toil. He entered 
into Simon’s ship and asked him to thrust out a 
little from the shore that he might be face to face 
with the waiting crowd. When his message to 
the people was ended, he said to Simon, “ Launch 
out into the deep and let down 3'our nets for a 
draught.” Simon was hopeless, because they 
had toiled all night and had taken nothing; 
“Nevertheless, at thy word,” he said, “I will 
let down the net.” And the draught of fishes 
was so great that the net brake, and they feared 
that both ships would sink under the burden of 
their success. 


(24) 


Launch Out into the Deep.” 


25 


Did you observe bow the Great Teacher took 
them away from the shallows, and bade them 
“Launch out into the deep?” Was this a 
secret of his own life—that he left the shallows 
for the depths ? I think this lesson is clear in 
every chapter of his life. In that first visit to 
Jerusalem, when he was twelve years old, you 
remember how he was missed from the company 
of returning pilgrims, and how his father and 
mother sought him sorrowing, to find him, not 
in the bazaars of Jerusalem which would promise 
great attractions to the little lad from the car¬ 
penter’s shop; but with the doctors of the temple, 
“both hearing them, and asking them questions ” 
concerning the deep things of God! He taught 
this lesson in that home in Bethany, the home 
of the two sisters and brother whom he loved. 
Martha’s thought, generous and unselfish with¬ 
out doubt, was the service to the outward man— 
what food and drink she should prepare for him. 
And she made complaint to him that her sister 
Mary did not enough help her. Mary sat at the 


26 


Words by the Way. 


feet of Jesus and “heard his word.” To Jesus, 
whose soul was charged with a message to the 
souls of men, what he should eat and what he 
should drink were the unimportant things of his 
life, and Mary’s listening to his message was 
more than food and drink to him. His rebuke 
to Martha is very gentle, and it was really the 
message “Launch out into the deep!” “Jesus 
answered and said unto her—Martha, Martha, 
thou art careful and troubled about many things: 
but one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen 
that good part, which shall not be taken away 
from her.” Mary had found the deep places of 
life, she was growing rich toward God. 

The teaching of the Great Master in far-away 
Galilee—this “accent of the Holy Ghost,” has 
lived on and on in the world; let us open the 
inner ear of our souls this day, to be bidden by 
him—“ Launch out into the deep.” The choice 
between the shallows and deeps is always to be 
made. It is right for us to remember that there 
are companies of young people to whom this 


“ Launch Out into the Deep.” 


27 


language of Jesus would be really an unknown 
tongue. I am thinking first of “prisoners of 
poverty,” literally “prisoners,” not behind iron 
bars, but in the degradation of the tenement- 
house herds, kept in herds by lack of work or ill¬ 
ness; possibly by shiftlessness and intemperance. 
There are children and youths in these human 
herds, born to a home of one room for ten or a 
dozen persons to sleep in, and eat in if perchance 
they have food; to have fever in, to do their 
sweat-shop work in, or laundry work, if per¬ 
chance they have work. To such prisoners as 
these, whose whole life seems the clamor of the 
body for bread, this message of Jesus could have 
little meaning—they are chained to the rocks of 
their shallows, as truly as was ever Prometheus 
fastened to his place of torture. It is right for us 
now and again to let our minds pause upon this 
picture of other children and youths, to feel the 
sharp contrast between their lot and our own. It 
is mercifully true, doubtless, that the misery to 
them is not what it would be to us suddenly 


28 


Words by the Way. 


taken from our college setting and thrust into 
theirs; but how pitiful it is that they do not even 
dream how much is missing from their lives. A 
merciful Father and omniscient Judge has their 
impoverished lives in his keeping—“a thousand 
years in his sight are as but a day”—we can 
trust for what we cannot know! 

But there are not only “ prisoners of poverty ” 
held to the shallows of life, there are prisoners 
of plenty here and there in the world, to whom 
the message of Jesus is an unknown tongue. 
“To eat, drink, and be merry” is a creed that 
after awhile exhausts all the resources of the 
shallows, and reduces the wings of the soul to 
merest rudiments. If it be tragedy to walk the 
streets in vain seeking for work to meet the bare 
necessities of life, it is paralysis to turn aside 
from stimulating, even exacting work, for the en¬ 
feebling pursuit of pleasure. ‘ ‘ If all the year, ’ ’ 
wrote Shakespeare, ‘ * were playing holidays, to 
play would be as tedious as to work.” Not only 
“ tedious,” it must be added, but crippling in the 


“Launch Out into the Deep 


29 


end, as making play impossible, and the days a 
dreary pursuit of a “will-o’-the-wisp.” For the 
prisoners of poverty there is a way out of the 
vshallows; for the prisoners of plenty the case is 
far more hopeless. 

But in a company of college students, particu¬ 
larly in this company of college students, the 
great Teacher should find quick ears and respon¬ 
sive souls for his message ‘ ‘ Launch out into the 
deep!” No prisoners of poverty in this happy 
company! Sweet, wholesome homes in which 
mother and father, working together, have made 
heavenly places for the nesting of the young; 
homes in which the children have been trained in 
the field perhaps and the house to have helping, 
useful hands; homes in which mother and father, 
craving the best things for their children, count 
all sacrifice for them as joy, and keep the mort¬ 
gage a few years longer on the farm, and wear 
the thread-bare coat if need be, and turn the gown 
once more that the children may have the high 
privileges of college life—these are some of the 


30 


Words by the Way . 


homes that have given up their sons and daugh¬ 
ters to make this blessed company. It cannot be 
that from such homes you will turn a deaf ear to 
the message of Jesus! 

But perhaps you are saying, “ Can there be 
any shallows in college life ? Here are food and 
drink that our parents’ care has secured ; here is 
a regular routine of work that the college Faculty 
has arranged ; here are hours of athletic sport and 
of social pleasure provided for our need ; here are 
times set apart for reaching up to God.” And 
yet, there are shallows in college life, and very 
dangerous these shallows may be. You who 
have lived intimately with your father and 
mother, resting in their judgment, believing in 
their wisdom, knowing their faithful love, change 
that deep communion for the close intimacy of 
your peers. You exchange maturity for imma¬ 
turity ; you leave fixedness of purpose for the 
impulses of youth ; you leave established prin¬ 
ciples of conduct for the shifting standards of 
youth. You find yourself in the new and very 


“Launch Out into the Deep.” 


31 


real danger that you and your peers will grad¬ 
ually set aside the moral law which you have 
lived by with your parents, and make for your¬ 
self a college code ; that you and your peers will 
in reality, though perhaps unconsciously “re¬ 
solve that black is white,” and set out to name 
black things white. Before you left the farm 
you would have called it a black thing to measure 
out thirty-one and a half quarts for a bushel of 
grain ; you would have called it a black thing to 
go to your neighbor’s orchard and steal his fruit; 
you would have called it a black thing to sweep 
the dust under the rug, and leave it there; you 
would have called it a black thing to live in the 
house as though you were its sole occupant, 
regardless of the well-being of the household. 
Apply a test to this college life and mark your 
grade, each for himself. Now that you are sepa¬ 
rated from the standards of home, are you still 
calling black things black? Do you go to the 
class-room with dishonest work—not work at all, 
in fact—and look your own soul in the face and 


32 


Words by the Way. 


say, “I am doing a black thing, I am a liar, a 
cheat! ” or do you allow yourself to say lightly, 
“ O, this is college ; and we have passed a reso¬ 
lution that here black things are white”? Not 
one father and mother represented by this com¬ 
pany would have felt anxiety on this point for 
their son or daughter. Certainly not! You had 
been known in the society of your parents—you 
had not been tested in the society of your peers. 
And what will be the effect of such association 
cannot with certainty be foretold. College life is 
of necessity a revelation to the student of himself. 
It cannot certainly be foretold whether he will 
hear and obey the lesson of Jesus to ‘‘Launch 
out into the deep.” 

We must not dwell in thought upon the shah 
lows, except to acknowledge their dangers and be 
forewarned. Their satisfactions can be but for a 
moment—they turn to dust and ashes upon our 
lips. The results of other students’ work pre¬ 
sented as his own may deceive his teacher, but 
the student does not deceive himself, nor can he 


“Launch Out into the Deep: 


33 


escape from himself, nor can he escape the in¬ 
delible record in his tell-tale eyes. No reiteration 
of the resolution that black is white can ever 
make it so in the smallest college or the greatest 
university. He cannot play with the moral law. 
‘ * Thus saith the Tord ’ ’ is from everlasting to 
everlasting. Blessed indeed is the youth who 
learns this early, and strives to fit his life to the 
unchangeable moral laws; and when he finds 
himself tempted by other standards, acknowl¬ 
edges to himself th ritforrift ift fl wenk place in his 
character that \per&Ujh££y; 'framed for 

strength. RECEIVED, * 

I have tried to placpg^is.d^ng^^efore you in 
the baldest wdy, that there might ’be no possibil¬ 
ity of missing itferd&l? mining. If }$>u&fe manly 
and womanly enough to justify your parents’ 
faith in you, then they have made no mistake in 
opening to you the noble opportunities of college 
life. These opportunities nobly accepted bear 
the student “out into the deep.” They open 
sources of practical power and sources of joy un- 
3 


34 


Words by the Way. 


dreamed of in the shallows. You will not doubt 
that power is accumulated in the deep; perhaps 
it is not so easy for you to believe that youth’s 
insatiable appetite for pleasure can only be satis¬ 
fied there. Your eye is caught by the ripple upon 
the shallows, their gay sparkle—the “jolly fel¬ 
low” is the man you would be, the “merry 
maid” who doesn’t care over-much whether law 
and order are preserved—you think she is the maid 
admired and sought for. Oftener than not it 
turns out that such “jolly fellows” and such 
“merry maids” have their seasons for shining, 
but they cannot be depended upon for shining in 
dull weather. Creatures of the shallows have no 
resources from which to keep on shining; they 
are like rockets that have their uses for very spe¬ 
cial occasions; but w T ho would not depend upon 
the tallow-dip rather than the rocket, in the long 
winter evenings that are before us ? It is to those 
who have ‘ ‘ launched out into the deep ’ ’ that we 
must look for that splendid enthusiasm that finds 
joy in every part of life—that shouts and shouts 


Launch Out into the Deep." 


35 


and shouts again upon the athletic field; then, 
when the next hour calls to soberer business, 
puts on the harness that is to make it available 
for enduring results. 

How can we better help ourselves to obey this 
message of the great Teacher than to keep close 
to Him ? We can read over and over again the 
short story of his life, and try to saturate our¬ 
selves with His spirit. The nineteen centuries 
between His life and ours have brought about 
differences of detail—the seamless garment is 
done away with, life is more complex; but that 
which we name the Christ-spirit is the power by 
which we can be saved from ourselves, and be¬ 
come co-workers with God. 


51 Cjumble GTectcljcr. 


It is not from Hebrew history, but from our 
own, that this lesson is drawn. Many of you 
have some knowledge of the Schofield School for 
colored pupils in Aiken, South Carolina. In a 
recent issue of the little Bulletin , which every 
month reports the work of the school, is a word- 
picture which has taken very fast hold upon my 
own mind; and I am moved to reproduce it for 
its suggestion for earnest thought. 

A writer in the Bulletin says : “ A guest at the 
school took the picture of Aunt Betsey, as the 
latter had described herself to me years ago, 
when she was a slave. 

“ ‘ Yes, missus,’ she said, * I couldn’t eat half- 
cooked hominy, and I had to walk two miles to 
de field, so I take a board, put some sand on it, 
built a little fire under de pot, and put it on my 
(36) 


A Humble Teacher. 


37 


head to cook, toten a baby in my arms; and de 
hominy be cooked when I got dar. * As we were 
fixing the little three-legged pot over the fire on 
her head, her talk went on. We asked who took 
care of the baby? ‘ I put ’e in a pine box, and 
the one that was hanging on my frock took care 
of it. I always would have something when I 
worked for massa; had a few hills of my own. 
Some folks too lazy for shadow to follow ’em, but 
I so tank de I^ord I can go about yit. * How old 
are you? ‘I’m deep into seventy, if I aint close 
over it, and some say I too old to work, but I 
tells ’em I aint too old to eat and the I^ord ’ill 
find me a tryen’. I earn my little five centses 
and means to, and when I wants a little coffee or 
sugar I buys it, and it feels so good to be inde¬ 
pendent.” 

‘ ‘ Kven a good picture cannot give the strength 
and earnestness of that strong African face, 
gleaming with a spirit of energy, as she stood 
with fire blazing on her head and balanced the 
board, and, letting go, was ready to go forward.” 


38 


Words by the Way. 


In the first place, this word picture is his¬ 
torical, illustrating as does the picture of the 
landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, or 
William Penn in treaty with the Indians, one 
phase of our nation’s life. A woman, a mother , 
in the early morning, tramping two miles to her 
master’s field, cooking her breakfast of hominy 
as she goes, bearing her baby in her arms, 
another child following at her side to begin a life 
of servitude ; mother and child holding the same 
relation to the master as the mare and her colt in 
another part of the plantation. That a woman 
could be held a chattel slave in this country that 
proudly named itself “the land of the free,” 
proved to be the germ of a malignant malady. 
The germ developed in the heart’s core of our 
nation and poisoned it from center to circum¬ 
ference. It is called “poetic justice,” that the 
chain, fastened upon the heel of a slave, clasps 
itself about the neck of the master also. This 
was true in our national history. The four mil¬ 
lion slaves of the South were bound by invisible 


A Humble Teacher. 


39 


chains not only to the necks of their masters in 
the South, but hardly less, through the ties of 
trade and church and government, to the necks of 
all the North. You know the story—how this 
germ of injustice and unrighteousness developed 
into war and wrought an atonement of blood and 
tears and treasure, of orphanage and widowhood. 
You to whom it is only a story out of the pages 
of history, can never know, as do your parents, 
who lived through those terrible years of slavery 
and of civil war, the profound thanksgiving of 
our country’s best lovers, that this injustice and 
unrighteousness have been put away. Lowell 
wrote: 

“ Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release! 
Thy God in these distempered days 
Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of his ways, 

And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace! 
Bow down in prayer and praise !” 

And Aunt Betsy ! Is there any lesson for us 
in the words of this aged black woman? True, 
she uses very imperfect English! But we have 


40 


Words by the Way. 


to remember that the law of slavery made it a 
penal offense to teach her the alphabet. And 
then her daily two-mile tramp to the master’s 
field could not have left any margin of time at 
night, after her humble housekeeping and moth¬ 
erly offices were performed, to learn good Eng¬ 
lish, even by the “natural method.” But she 
has come “deep into seventy years” with all 
their slavery and hardships and privations, with 
spirit undaunted, and this note of cheerful cour¬ 
age: “Some say I too old to work, but I tells ’em 
I aint too old to eat , and the Eord’ll find me a 
tryen !” May we not say that Aunt Betsy has 
lived up to the full measure of her opportunity ? 
I can well believe that no burst of organ music 
could have a nobler or a sweeter sound in the ears 
of the Lord than this brave spirit of co-operation, 
“ the Lord’ll find me a tryen.” Of Aunt Betsy’s 
hardships—the hard work with her hands, the 
poor cabin in which she has had to live with 
scarcely more than a roof to protect her from the 
weather, of all this you and I know nothing. 


A Humble Teacher. 


41 


But hardships in some other form will make a 
part of our training in the school of life. Our 
athletes, you have observed, do not get their 
training on “flowery beds of ease.” At college, 
your training is in part the hard things that are 
set for your accomplishment—the difficulties of 
mathematics and science and language, the re¬ 
quirement that you shall be punctual, the en¬ 
deavor to help you to be just to one another, and 
thoughtful of one another’s welfare. Beyond 
college your training will still go on in the diffi¬ 
culties that are a part of home life, of trade, of 
every profession. It would seem to be a measure 
of compensation for brave old Aunt Betsy, so un¬ 
conscious of us, or that her story has gone out 
into the world, if we, having the college life—of 
which she does not dream—equipped unto all 
good works, if only we accept our opportunities 
—if we could take to our hearts to leaven all our 
lives, to pass them on and on, her own brave 
words, “the Lord’ll find me a tryen.” 

And then her further words—remember, she is 


42 


Words by the Way. 


an old woman—“I earn my little five centses and 
means to, and when I wants a little coffee or sugar 
I buys it, and it feels so good to be independent.” 
No drone is she, folding her hands in the human 
hive. Something has reached her inmost soul 
with the great lesson that Jesus taught “my 
Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” She 
means to pay for all she gets. She is untouched 
by the blighting ambition that lays hold upon so 
many book-instructed men and women, to get 
something for nothing—to get as much as possible 
for nothing! And how far she makes her “ little 
five centses ” go! Or, rather how wisely she fits 
her wants to her “little five centses,” the lesson 
so hard for most of us to learn. Perhaps we are 
saying in our hearts, “ If only we could make 
sure that Aunt Betsy would receive more of this 
world’s bounties we would gladly check our lav¬ 
ish habits—the five cents or the dimes that prov¬ 
ident hands put into our own for our gratification 
we would spend with some thought beyond the 
moment’s gratification.” Aunt Betsy is far away 


A Humble Teacher. 


43 


from us, and what we do or leave undone may 
never touch her life; but we can place it to the 
credit of her faithful life in the world, if the 
thought of her right principle of action be al¬ 
lowed sometimes to influence our own. 

One other thought. It is hardly likely that 
Aunt Betsy in her old age, after the hardships of 
her long life, is very beautiful to look upon. But 
we must remember that the day is drawing near 
to her when the wrinkled, uncomely outer cover¬ 
ing of this brave soul will be cast aside; and she 
will appear in the company of souls gone on, in 
the spiritual body that her faithful life in the 
world has evolved. Such cheerful courage as 
hers will wing her soul for long and strong flight; 
and it is easy to conceive that He who knows 
men as they are, will announce to this humble 
teacher, ‘ ‘ Thou hast been faithful over a few 
things—I will make thee ruler over many things. 
Enter thou into the joy of thy Eord.” 


®[)£ Root of Courtesg. 


One message of the apostle Peter to those 
whom he designated “elect,” can hardly be out 
of place in this hour set apart from our days of 
engrossing occupation, for the “upward look.” 
He wrote to the ‘ ‘ strangers scattered throughout 
Pontus and Galatia:” “Finally, love as breth¬ 
ren, be pitiful, be courteous.” These words 
seem to bridge over the chasm of eighteen cen¬ 
turies, and reveal to us that even the ‘ ‘ elect ’ ’ of 
that far-away time, had need to be reminded, as 
we have need, of the claims of brotherly love, 
and pity, and courtesy. They help us to realize 
too that “a thousand years are as one day” in 
the patience of the Ford, who unwearyingly 
makes his sun to rise and set, and ripens his har¬ 
vests, and pours out his heart of love in beauty, 
while the divine germ in his children slowly un- 
( 44 ) 


The Root of Courtesy. 


45 


folds toward that development which shall know 
only brotherly love and courtesy. 

To Peter these words must have had a very 
special significance. He had walked with Jesus. 
He had been taken into that rare companionship 
—that circle of “friends” to whom Jesus told 
whatsoever he learned of the Father. He had 
been blessed with the brotherly love of Jesus; 
and when in the crucial hour he had thrice de¬ 
nied his discipleship, he had seen the courtesy of 
Jesus who railed not with bitter words against 
his desertion, but only turned and looked upon 
him. He had learned the heavenly atmosphere, 
the saving power of brotherly love, and of cour¬ 
tesy; and what he had learned at the Fountain 
Head, he passed on in his letter to the “elect” 
strangers. This message has come on and on 
down the centuries to us, for this quiet hour, 
“hove as brethren, be courteous;” and I believe 
that it is fair to say, that only as we love as 
brethren, only as we count ourselves members of 
a great family whose head is our Father, our 


46 


Words by the Way . 


Mother—God, can we be genuinely courteous— 
that love is the perennial root whose flower is 
courtesy. This thought of courtesy makes it 
not a veneer to be applied for occasions, to be ob¬ 
served by certain favorite eyes, to be effective in 
selected places; but a vital, growing thing, a 
blossoming of the soul good for every-day life at 
home, at college, in trade. Do you see how this 
thought of courtesy eliminates the element of 
class or caste, and makes it the possible grace of 
all who have a heart to feel ? For the sensitive 
heart belongs to “all sorts and conditions of 
men,” from the man of scanty purse who gathered 
into his own household the orphaned children of 
his neighbor, to the knightly soldier immortal¬ 
ized by passing on the cup of cold water to the 
fellow-soldier whose need was greater. In 
Walter Besant’s story “The Children of Gib- 
eon,” two young girls grow up happily together 
in the belief that they are sisters. But there 
comes a day when Tady Mildred has to tell them 
that one is her adopted daughter, the child of 


The Root of Courtesy . 


47 


obscure parentage. She tells them: “You have 
proved that there are in every condition of life 
children who may be trained and educated to 
have the manners and the instincts of the most 
well-bred and the most cultured. Just so, among 
the well-born and the well-educated, there are 
men who are clowns in manner and brutes in 
taste. Not the slightest difference between my 
two girls. . . . There is nothing in the world so 
good as to be gentle, and one of you, my dears, 
is as gentle as the other.” 

The sensitive heart has the power to live a 
double life, perhaps it might be said, to live not 
only its own life, but to project itself into the 
life of other souls, and thus to harmonize itself 
with the needs of other souls and minister to 
them. The later translators of Peter’s letter 
use the word humble minded instead of courtesy , 
not so picturesque a word, perhaps, but not in¬ 
consistent with the deepest meaning of cour¬ 
tesy. Quite consistent with this later rendering, 
is Shakespeare’s “Love thyself last,” another 


48 


Words by the Way. 


law of courtesy that we might well “bind as a 
sign upon our hand, or a frontlet between our 
eyes.” 

From the apostle’s message there is but a step 
to this testimony from Emerson: “An old man 
who added an elevating culture to a large exper¬ 
ience of life, said to me, ‘ When you come into 
the room, I think I will study how to make 
humanity beautiful to you.’ ” Try to bring to 
yourselves the blessedness of that old man’s pres¬ 
ence—free from every thought of self, free from 
the desire to impress his own greatness of learn¬ 
ing or greatness of possession, free from the crit¬ 
ical impulse to see the weaknesses and poverties 
of others, thinking only of the possible beauties 
toward which human nature is slowly growing; 
and so, creating about himself an atmosphere 
most helpful for such growth. “I will study 
how to make humanity beautiful to you.” With 
this purpose in my heart, can I ever act the petty, 
tormenting things which fill the ape’s horizon of 
delight? If I would make humanity beautiful 


The Root of Courtesy. 


49 


to you, can I ever, in my intercourse with you, 
reproduce the tiger’s nature, that finds its satis¬ 
faction in snarling, and tearing, and spilling the 
blood of its victims ? If we were set in solitary 
places, if we lived in the ascetic’s cell, or spent 
our lives upon pillars in the desert like St. Sim¬ 
eon Stylites, then the law of courtesy would have 
little claim upon us. But this seems not to be 
God’s plan for the development of humanity. 
Our Heavenly Bather has set his children in fam¬ 
ilies, with mother and father to be his special 
Providence to his little children, with brother and 
sister and precious friends to make the manifold 
relations of humanity. Our lines of life touch 
and cross each other at many points, so that no 
man can live to himself alone. And living so 
close together as we do in the home, in the col¬ 
lege, in the market-places, we must either rudely 
collide, bruising and disabling one another; or, 
filling our hearts with the purpose to make hu¬ 
manity beautiful, we shall smooth rough places, 
we shall stand by one another in the work and 
4 


50 


Words by the Way. 


the sorrows of life, as the “guards” protect 
their man entrusted with the ball. 

There may be an obtrusive suspicion in your 
hearts that ‘ ‘ beautiful humanity ’ ’ means such 
refinement that strength is sacrificed; that beau¬ 
tiful humanity means an aim suited to woman¬ 
hood, but insufficient for the stalwart strength of 
manhood. Strength and beauty are not incom¬ 
patible. Does any one question that Niagara has 
strength ? and no atom of power goes out of the 
thundering waterfall when sunny days glorify it 
with the touch of rainbow-beauty from the crea¬ 
tive Hand. Do we ever say anything but the 
“ mighty ocean;” and yet the same beauty-loving 
Hand has conformed the ocean’s ebb and flow to 
the law of the curve, the “line of beauty.” 
Luther sang, “A mighty Fortress is our God,” . 
—the symbol of impregnable strength; but if our 
souls are attuned to the message, it seems to me 
we may hear this declaration: “I have studied 
to make my worlds and your world, the home of 
humanity, beautiful to you.” Beautiful human- 


The Root of Courtesy . 


51 


ity is not feminine, is not masculine, and is most 
beautiful in womanhood or in manhood, that is 
as strong as it is beautiful, of stout courage; of 
unflinching fortitude; of unwavering steadfast¬ 
ness. 

One other thought presses for utterance in this 
presence. In these latter days, since woman 
has learned the alphabet, and in the slow process 
of evolution is coming into possession of herself, 
and taking new places of power according to her 
attainments, even coming to the rescue of the 
“ forlorn ” hopes of man, we hear such speech as 
this: “ If women choose to stand for their rights, 
let them stand in the street-cars; if they will 
have rights , let them expect to give up courtesies 
There is one message which I wish to leave in 
this company as a seed of highest and purest and 
noblest thought. Men build monuments to those 
whose fortitude takes them to the stake or the in¬ 
quisitor’s rack rather than yield their convictions 
of truth. No man breathes the breath of life but 
at the price of physical anguish paralleled only 


52 


Words by the Way. 


by the tortures of the inquisitor’s rack. Woman¬ 
hood makes no claim to the martyr’s monument; 
for the anguish of motherhood is straightway 
forgotten “in joy that a man is born into the 
world.’’ But, can manhood forget! Mothers 
pass beyond the reach of courtesy and tender 
ministrations; but womanhood remains, with 
silent, unredeemable claim upon the courtesy and 
chivalry of manhood. And now, let this be our 
prayer: 

Father, fill thou our hearts with heavenly love 

To shine with steadfast ray upon our path; 

To hold our hand from deeds of wantonness; 

To keep our tongue from speaking words that blight; 

To be the oil of gladness in our tasks; 

To bloom in gentle courtesies along the way of life; 

Our souls to anchor to thy Soul of Love! 


21 Spring JJarabk. 


When the Great Teacher walked the fields of 
Palestine, the corn and the grass and the flowers 
were ministers to him concerning heavenly 
things. He never mentions growing things that 
our thought is not directed in reverence and 
gratitude to the source of life and growth. 

Tet us for a moment turn our thought toward 
a beautiful lesson writing itself before our eyes 
these many days in gold and white and purple. 
Before there was a hint of spring in our upper 
air, one day our eyes were surprised and glad¬ 
dened by the brave appearance of golden cro¬ 
cuses. Cold and darkness had been tlieir portion 
for the winter, but in their tiny tombs the won¬ 
derful processes of development had been going 
on—the atoms of the little brown-coated bulbs 
had followed the law written on their inward 
( 53 ) 


54 


Words by the Way. 


parts, and had taken each its appointed place in 
stem or golden petal or fructifying pollen, to 
make the thing of beauty that has been such a 
joy to our eyes. 

It must have been the stoutest of heart that 
came so long ago, when they had to pierce the 
chilling sod and submit to showers of snow and 
coatings of ice, on those memorable days when 
‘ ‘ splendor glowed on crystal boughs. * * Many a 
day they could only just hold their own against 
the wintry storms; but the next sunshine would 
find them glowing as ever, and opening wider 
and wider their delicate cups. At last, when the 
robins arrived, the beautiful things came troop¬ 
ing out of the darkness and chill, to be a hospit¬ 
able resort for the busy bees, and to stand in 
beauteous ranks, a living witness to the Spirit in 
whom all things, both great and small, have their 
being. Many of us have stopped in our daily 
walk, to enjoy their beauty, perhaps to breathe 
if not to speak our gratitude for their precious 
ministry. If we were called upon to report upon 


A Spr ing Parable. 


55 


the achievements of this company of crocuses, 
we would testify with one voice, would we not, 
that they have made the ver)' most of their blos¬ 
soming season. It has been the work of one set 
of bulbs to make smaller blossoms, but many of 
them. Some were appointed to be large and 
stately in the crocus family. Some were of pur¬ 
est white, and others penciled with lavender, and 
again, others were in rich purple. But whatever 
the size or the color, it has been apparent from 
the first that they were living out the law of their 
being, that they were deliberately trying to be 
fine crocuses; that if human blossoms have not , 
crocuses have the courage to be as good as they 
are capable of being. Was there ever a day of 
their glory in which we found one of the exquisite 
white sisterhood smirching her fair corolla lest 
she should be laughed at as “ too good ?” Among 
the fraternity- in royal purple, did we ever find 
any suggestion of distorted petals or swollen 
stamens to prove that they among their fellows 
had ‘* nerve ? ” And was it ever in our hearts to 


5 ^ 


Words by the Way. 


say that it was a tiresome thing to see our crocus 
rows making themselves as fine and good as they 
could ? Did it ever enter our minds to wish that 
for the sake of variety some had grown with their 
bulbs high in air, and others with ragged petals, 
and others with no petals at all? No! we have 
rejoiced in their perfection—that they were obe¬ 
dient to the law of the Lord. Would we, if we 
could, speak the word that should free these beau¬ 
tiful things from the law of perfection under 
which they grow ? Would we distort these beau¬ 
teous things with the poisonous heresy that it is 
a dull and stupid and unpopular thing to try to 
live by the law written upon the heart ? 

A great poet has written, 

“ Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
Unseen, both when we sleep and when we wake;” 

and you will remember that it is recorded that 
when Jesus prayed in agony upon the Mount of 
Olives, “ there appeared unto him an angel from 
heaven, strengthening him.” Who can tell but 


A Spring Parable. 


57 


that we are as human blossoms in the boundless 
garden of the Tord, beneath the eyes of “spir¬ 
itual creatures” to whom our growth and fruit¬ 
age minister as the crocuses have ministered to 
us! 

A blighting heresy has reached even the little 
children who laugh at their mates for being obe¬ 
dient to school regulations; who dwarf their own 
small wits in their attempts to frustrate the plans 
of their teachers for their happy development. 

In a college monthly published by the Senior 
Class of a college in another state, appears this 
paragraph: “ One great fault which the conscien¬ 
tious girl naturally falls into, is that of disclaim¬ 
ing any influence of her conscience over her 
actions. . . . The fear of ridicule, or the word 
* grind * prevents her from saying that she was 
studying while the other girls were idling, or, 
that she had spent three hours and a half on a 
German lesson to which her companions had only 
devoted one.” Here again is the fatal heresy! 

This article was written to prove that the se- 


58 


Words by the Way. 


rious element in college work is the predominant 
element in the work of the majority of the stu¬ 
dents of that college. But the article incidentally 
brings to light the fact that the conscientious stu¬ 
dent is afraid to let it appear that conscience has 
any part in her college life, to impel her to do the 
very thing for which colleges were instituted; 
afraid of the ridicule of other students who would 
dismiss the standard of God and set up their own. 
Here is a heresy that may well arrest our thought; 
for it touches the very foundation of things. 
Kepler was moved to awe and reverence by ‘ ‘ the 
starry heavens, and the moral law written upon 
the heart.” And now, nineteen hundred years 
after Christ’s appeal to his pupils, “Be ye also 
perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is per¬ 
fect,” it is coming to be the fashion among the 
young to laugh at the moral law! And the 
naked significance of this is, that the young are 
beginning to laugh at God! 

If we believe that the crocus, doing its best to 
be a perfect crocus, is only one of the signs that 


A Spring Parable. 


59 


God loves perfection, how much more must we 
believe that it is a part of his great plan that 
every human child of his, so near to his Infinite 
Being as to be permitted to “ think his thoughts 
after him,” should try to be his perfect child! 
Are you saying in your hearts “How can I set 
out to be perfect? With my weak will and 
weaker purpose, and countless temptations to 
waywardness if not wickedness, how can I hope 
ever to come near to perfection ? ’ ’ The crocus 
does not appear above the ground placarded, “ I 
have set out to be a perfect crocus.” It just 
grows according to the law of its being, and 
comes out a perfect crocus. And so, it is not re¬ 
quired of us to take any vow of perfection. In¬ 
deed, we need not even think of ourselves at all. 
If we keep our thought upon the perfection of 
God, we shall be moving ever in the right direc¬ 
tion. If we stumble and fall again and again, as 
human children must, in learning to walk the 
way toward God, if only we keep going in the 
right direction, there will be angel ministers to 


6o 


Words by the Way. 


lift us up and strengthen us. And when for a 
moment the way may be obscured, if we make it 
the habit of our lives to lift up our hearts—it may 
be in the midst of work or in the midst of recrea¬ 
tion—with the earnest appeal to our Father 
“What wilt thou have me to do?” or “Where 
wilt thou have me to go?” the way will open 
clearly before us. In the way toward God lie all 
the best and sweetest things of life—the whole- 
somest fun, the brightest joys, the truest friend¬ 
ships, the noblest service. 

Shall we make it the crowning glory of our 
crocus rows, that our remembrance of their per¬ 
fections shall turn our thought toward God ? 


do-opfration. 


In his letter to the Corinthians the Apostle 
Paul gave an impressive object-lesson upon the 
necessity for united labor among those whom he 
designated ‘ ‘ the body of Christ, and members in 
particular.” He made the human body the 
illustration of his thought. “For,” he said, 
“ the body is not one member, but many.” 

‘ ‘ If the foot shall say, because I am not the 
hand, I am not of the body; it is not therefore 
not of the body.” 

“And if the ear shall say, Because I am not 
the eye, I am not of the body; it is not therefore 
not of the body.” 

“ If the whole body were an eye, where were 
the hearing ? If the whole were hearing, where 
were the smelling ? ” 

(61) 


62 


Words by the Way. 


“ But now hath God set the members every 
one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.” 

“And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I 
have no need of thee: nor again, the head to the 
feet, I have no need of you.” 

“But God hath tempered the body together, 
that there should be no schism in the body; but 
that the members should have the same care one 
for another.” 

“And whether one member suffer, all the 
members suffer with it; or one member be hon¬ 
ored, all the members rejoice with it.” 

This is a lesson that we can all verify in our 
own experience. We know well how our com¬ 
fort, and largely our happiness, depends upon 
the harmonious working together of the members 
of our body. However bright the sunshine may 
be over the face of the earth, it is a clouded 
morning for us that finds us with head or hand 
out of harmony with the other members of the 
body. How gladly we would detach the aching 
member whose distemper has taken the bright- 


Co-operation. 


63 


ness out of the day, and melody out of all the 
sweet sounds—how gladly we would detach it 
and lay it away in solitude to heal itself for har¬ 
monious service again. But this cannot be. The 
imprudence in eating or drinking, in work or in 
play, that makes the aching head, inevitably 
lays its burden upon all the members, and these 
must endure the process by which nature can in 
time restore the lost harmony. 

It was to those who were consciously or uncon¬ 
sciously founding a new church that Paul the 
Apostle sent this lesson in harmonious service, 
earnestly entreating them to believe that they 
were members of Christ’s body, some to be Apos¬ 
tles, some to work miracles, some to have gifts 
of healing, and all to be moved by the spirit of 
love. This beautiful lesson has much in it for 
us, at the beginning of a new college year. It is 
as true of the college as of the church, that we 
are all “ members of one body,” each important 
in his own place to the welfare of all. In our 
separate homes also this is true; with the differ- 


6 4 


Words by the Way. 


ence that the separate home is a smaller body, 
with fewer members to be harmonized. The 
college body has nine score or more members to 
be brought into harmonious activity. At first 
thought, this would seem to be quite impossible. 
How can it be that more than nine score members 
of one body can be made to fit to one another ! 
For our proportions as individual members are 
very different one from another, so different that 
we cannot join hands in one long row, and reach 
one uniform height established by law as the one 
correct height. There may be nine score or 
more points of vision, and delicacies of hearing, 
and degrees of self-control. At one height the 
eye takes in only the things that are close at 
hand—the woods that skirt the next field, and 
the brook by the roadside—it does not dream of 
the glories that are revealed of mountains and 
sky and sea by a hard climb to a higher level; it 
does not dream that its pleasures which are only 
for the hour, are poor indeed beside those joys 
which are rooted in the Eternal! How, then, 


Co-operation. 


65 


can the far-seeing and the short-sighted fit them¬ 
selves one to the other? If we were cast-iron 
members this could not be. But human souls, 
patterned after the Divine, are made for the Di¬ 
vine unity. The far-seeing will not scorn the 
narrow-vision; and there will be such light upon 
him from the hills of God, that others seeing the 
brightness, will ask its source, and try the steeper 
climb, and find that they too were made for the 
higher level. One note in the harmonies that 
reaches the sensitive ear, is the note of infinite 
patience that awaits the slow process of growth 
from infancy to maturity. If we were cast-iron 
members we would have to go about prodding 
one another with our sharp points, irritating old 
wounds and making new ones. But we are all 
dowered in greater or less degree with the Divine 
gift of love. Paul, when he had presented his 
object-lesson concerning the members of the body, 
added: “Covet earnestly the best gifts; and yet 
shew I unto you a more excellent way.” Then 
he gave them that wonderful discourse on the 
5 


66 


Words by the Way. 


power of love—“ If I speak with the tongues of 
men and of angels, but have not love, I am be¬ 
come sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.” 

Here, then, is the secret of accord for the nine 
score or more members of the collegiate body. 
Is Paul’s noble love among us? This is the cru¬ 
cial question for each member to measure him¬ 
self by, teacher and taught. “Love doth not 
behave itself unseemly; love seeketh not her own, 
is not easily provoked.” Youth is subject to 
sudden impulses to let go restraint, and give free 
course to tumultuous desires and unseasonable 
satisfactions; and “ unseemly ” behaviour among 
the nine score members of the college body is like 
grains of sand thrown among the wheels of deli¬ 
cate machinery. Paul’s noble love withers away 
the germs of unseemly behaviour. 

“Love seeketh not her own.” This is only 
another way of saying ‘ ‘ Love delighteth to co¬ 
operate with her neighbor.” He who perpetu¬ 
ally seeks his own must go about as one with 
cast-iron members, thrusting aside whatever he 


Co-operation. 


67 


regards as standing in his way. Among stu¬ 
dents, he who seeks his own is on the low plane 
of vision that cannot see beyond the moment’s in¬ 
dulgence. It is his pleasure to throw his work 
to the winds, and amuse himself—it matters not 
to him that to his neighbor this very moment for 
work is like gold in his pocket, and to yield up 
the moment is like giving up his gold to a thief. 

It matters not to him that his self-seeking view 
of things would wreck the best interests of the 
college. He allies himself with those whom 
Watts, the great English artist, has portrayed in 
his picture of Mammon—an unlovely creature 
with his hand crushing a fair maiden, and his 
heavy foot upon the neck of a noble young man. 
Paul’s noble love is the antidote for the poison 
of self-seeking, and is the very life of all co¬ 
operative effort. 

‘ ‘ Love is not easily provoked.’’ This message 
is less for you than for me. I have tried to bring 
clearly before you that it is the spirit of co¬ 
operation alone that can make a place of peace 


68 


Words by the Way. 


and unity in which nine score members can work 
together as the collegiate body. Very keenly do 
I realize that only as my soul is baptized in this 
noble love, can I hope to point out the way to 
you, and help you to see the best things in life, 
and help you to make hard climbs upward. It is 
often borne in upon me that if I could be enough 
loving, I could shine away all the difficulties of 
our co-operative life. I want you to know that 
I listen to Paul’s message not only for what it has 
for you, but still more for what it has for myself. 

There is one other thought which I would 
bring clearly before you—our co-operation with 
each other is our only way of co-operating with 
God. I believe that words stand for very little 
with God. I believe that you and I might rise 
upon our feet for the whole of this hour set apart 
for “religious service,” as the world designates 
it, and say or sing over and over the words of the 
psalmist, “I will praise Thee with my whole 
heart: before the gods will I sing praise unto 
Thee. I will worship toward thy holy temple, 


Co-operation. 


69 


and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and 
for thy truth”—we might have this hour of 
words without ever reaching the ear of out 
Father. But I believe that we cannot have one 
impulse of care for each other’s welfare, one effort 
of self-restraint that keeps us silent rather than 
interrupt each other’s work, that its vibrations 
do not reach to the heart of Infinite Love. How 
can he care for the tones of the organ, or our 
spoken praises, except so far as they strengthen 
us to do the things he would have us to do for 
each other—his little children. To this beau¬ 
tiful, loving service of co-operation with our 
Heavenly Father in the daily and hourly concerns 
of life, we are all called. There is no high nor 
low in this service; no respecting of persons. 
There is the individual tie between every human 
soul and the Infinite Father. And as the indi¬ 
vidual relation with the Divine is cherished in 
our heart of hearts, it will gradually open the way 
to us for perfect co-operation, human and Divine. 



(Eh^rptofyerc! 


I,BT us turn our thoughts toward this beautiful 
hymn of the Psalmist: 

O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. 

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I 
flee from thy presence ? 

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make 
my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. 

If I take the wings of the morning and flee to the utter¬ 
most parts of the sea; 

Bven there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand 
shall hold me. 

If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me; even the 
night shall be light about me. 

Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night 
shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both 
alike to thee. 


Everywhere, God! not only the enveloping at- 
(70) 


God, Everywhere! 


71 


tnosphere, the great aerial ocean whose vibrations 
touch the nerves of sight and hearing, the ele¬ 
ment in which our bodies live and move; but 
everywhere the greater enveloping atmosphere— 
God, the vitality of all that lives; the Light in 
which can be no darkness at all! We do not see 
the air we breathe; we know it best when we 
miss it most. Let the air-pump be applied to 
this room in which we are assembled, and as the 
exhaustion became complete, our hearts would 
flutter and flutter, and presently cease to beat. 
Neither can we see God with these outward eyes 
of ours. It is possible to go through life seeing 
only what these outward eyes make visible to us. 
The sky may be only an overarching canopy of 
clouds. The trees and beauteous flowers may be 
only carbon and nitrogen and chlorophyl. The 
mountains may be only great masses of forest- 
covered granite or marble. Men and women may 
be only parents or brethren or friends. If our 
vision stops with these outward things, glorious 
and noble as they are, we miss the soul of them 


72 


Words by the Way. 


all. There is the Supreme Builder and Maker 
of them all, whose thoughts men are striving 
always to think after him. We use the words 
“Supreme Builder and Maker;” they only hint 
at a great conception which our finite minds can¬ 
not hope ever to make complete. I take a blade 
of grass in my hand, I know that men are able 
to make two blades of grass grow where one 
grew before; but the single blade,—that baffles the 
profoundest scientist, he cannot make it. That 
single blade of grass, then, which men can¬ 
not make, becomes an altar before which we may 
bow in deepest reverence, and acknowledge the 
Creative Power—God. The Athenians raised an 
altar to the unknown God! and yet, what revela¬ 
tions of himself are in his wondrous works. How 
could he be the ‘ ‘ unknown God ’ ’ to men who 
lived beneath his shining sky; who knew the 
majesty of the mountains and sea; the beauty of 
form and color, not in flowers alone, but in all 
forms of creation; who felt the love in human 
hearts that must have been kindled from the 


God, Everywhere/ 


73 


heart of God! It is in the power of the single 
blade of grass to unseal our eyes so that we may 
see God everywhere, and know that we cannot 
“go from his spirit” nor “flee from his pres¬ 
ence.” To the psalmist, God was the Jehovah, 
the Ford Almighty. Then there came a day of 
tenderer revelation. It was the little lad of Gal¬ 
ilee who first said, “I must be about my Father's 
business. ’ ’ 

Thenceforth there was not only God every¬ 
where; but there was everywhere a Father, and 
all men were become brethren, and the earth was 
flooded with light, and light and love were one. 
The “Father’s business” filled all his years. 
The “Father’s business” needed human hands 
to carry it on, to be strength to the weak, and 
healing for the sick, and sight to the blind, and 
comfort to the sorrowing. The “Father’s busi¬ 
ness ’ ’ brought the man of Galilee to the cross, 
but it made him the Tight of the world. Since 
he said “Father” all men who have heard his 
word in their souls, have drawn closer to God: 


74 


Words by the Way. 


and steadfast light is in our lives in proportion as 
we live toward God. 

May the psalmist’s vision, illuminated by the 
later light, be our vision! I would urge that we 
make these words of the psalmist our own, that 
we may say them over and over, and make them 
daily bread to our souls, and that we may grow 
toward their full meaning. Shall we do our work 
as unto God? It is this spirit of consecration 
that ennobles all work, that really makes us co¬ 
workers with God. Shall we play as in the pres¬ 
ence of the I,ord? O, yes, he has made us to 
love play; we have only to think if our play is 
pure and worthy of this great, enveloping Pres¬ 
ence. Shall we live with our friends as in the 
presence of God? It may be that these very 
friends of ours give us glimpses of God that we 
get in no other way. The sincerity of our friend 
—his nobleness, his mercifulness, his depend¬ 
ableness—can we help believing that they spring 
from the Divine! 

It is only this high plane of living toward God 


God, Everywhere! 


75 


that is worth our while. It is true that our steps 
will be stumbling steps for many a year. We 
are so human, and have so many besetments! 
We shall make mistakes of judgment; we shall 
lose our temper; we shall speak the harsh word; 
we shall actually hurt one another; we shall fail 
of our standard of honor; but let us not go down 
because we fall down ! We can trust the patience 
of God ! He will be glad of heart, as our father 
and mother are, when we rise up from every fall, 
and courageously keep our course upward toward 
Himself! 


®l )t Baptism of tl)e Spirit. 


You will recall the testimony of John that 
while he baptized with water, as a sign of the re¬ 
mission of sins, a sign of the old record washed 
away and a new record to be begun, there was 
another who baptized with the Holy Spirit. The 
baptism with water was only an emblem, an out¬ 
ward thing; the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that 
touched the very sources of the soul’s life. John 
bears witness that he saw the Holy Spirit in the 
form of a dove descend upon Jesus. Can we 
doubt that it was the Holy Spirit that quickened 
and filled the life of Jesus, and through him 
reached the hungering multitudes that hung 
upon his words and waited for his healing touch? 
The sick that needed a physician turned to this 
minister of health to make them whole. The 
unhappy souls that felt themselves possessed of 
( 76 ) 


The Baptism of the Spirit. 


77 


devils, clamored for his word of power to make 
them strong and set them free from the torment¬ 
ing thought that held them. Those who had put 
their trust in the letter of the law were taught a 
new test of their daily lives—“By their fruits 
shall ye know them.” This baptism of the Holy 
Spirit which visited the soul of Jesus and opened 
to his vision the very life of God, he received not 
as only his, but passed on to all who could share 
in it. In every generation since, this has been 
the great spiritual reality. It is true that sys¬ 
tems of theology with their many perplexing 
propositions have come between the souls of men 
and the vital touch of God. It is true that to 
bandaged eyes it is as if the sun were shining 
not. 

Happy is it for us, if we have in some measure, 
however slight, the consciousness that in God 
“we live and move and have our being;” if in 
the flood of autumn sunshine in which we are 
rejoicing, we find a messenger straight from the 
Sun of suns; if in every visible thing of his handi- 


78 


Words by the Way. 


work we see a manifestation of God. If only we 
have this consciousness of living in God, then 
our life becomes religious life—life bound to God. 
Then our thought will turn continually God- 
ward. When we are weighted with our work 
and it seems heavier than we can bear, the un¬ 
spoken appeal for more strength from the ex¬ 
haustless Fountain will renew our discouraged 
efforts. When we are tempted away from the 
right line of doing, and what we know to be con¬ 
science is laughed at as cowardice (and this often 
befalls the young), there is in this consciousness 
of God the unfailing source of noblest courage. 
And when we are most glad in our successes, and 
most gay in the abundance of life, it sanctifies all 
our gladness and gaiety, to say in our inmost 
heart “lam so thankful, Heavenly Father, to be 
glad.” You see, there is no separateness in this 
type of the religious life. There is no withdraw¬ 
ing into the convent or monastery to be near to 
God, to escape the difficulties of life there; there 
is no setting apart hours and days in which to be 


The Baptism of the Spirit. 


79 


religious. But right in the thick of things in our 
busiest work, in our gayest sports, one flash of 
thought Godward lifts us to the Holy of holies 
for the life-renewing baptism of the Spirit, and 
instantly we are back again to “do the next 
thing,” or to play with all our might if it be our 
time for play. Do you realize that it is our priv¬ 
ilege to be the ministers of this heavenly baptism 
to each other ? Mrs. Browning has written it: 

So others shall 

Take patience, labor to their heart and hand, 

From thy hand, and thy heart, and thy brave cheer, 
And God’s grace fructify through thee to all. 

Whether we will or not, we cannot pass each 
other in the hall or on the street that we do not 
baptize each other with the spirit we are of. This 
is the way we are made. And this makes life, of 
necessity, an earnest thing. Perhaps we would 
say ‘ ‘ It cannot make any difference to the com¬ 
munity or the world, what I do, I am so unim¬ 
portant and insignificant—I will just go my own 


8 o 


Words by the Way. 


way and look out for my own good and my own 
pleasure. I will not be my brother’s keeper.” 
But that very attitude of indifference does make 
itself felt. It puts in place of a sunbeam, an 
icicle. And how we do love to live among sun¬ 
beams! And how we do bless that soul, passing 
us in the hall or on the street, that calls to our 
mind, and thus baptizes us—faithfulness to pres¬ 
ent duty, the noble courage that puts to shame 
the laugh of the scorner, the charity that think- 
eth no evil, the sympathy that is balm to our 
wounds, the nobility that honors us, demanding 
the best that is in us! If Jesus baptized with the 
Holy Spirit, so may we in our lesser measure. 
Thus does our Heavenly Father honor us, ap¬ 
pointing us to this beautiful service. An element 
of sternness enters into this however that we 
must not close our eyes to. This is not only privi- 
leg e, but stewardship as well, this power of per¬ 
sonal baptism. And for our stewardship we have 
sometime and somehow to render an account to 
show whether we have done well or done ill in 


The Baptism of the Spirit. 


8 l 


keeping our brother! It is in cherishing in our¬ 
selves the consciousness that our life is in God, 
that we are called to all things true and noble and 
happy, that we can win for our stewardship the 
approving word “Well done, thou good and 
faithful one!” 

6 


learning to bt ©lair. 


This silence, which may be golden in its op¬ 
portunities to many a soul, I would not break, 
did I not hope that a golden message has been 
committed to me for you; did I not hope that a 
word spoken now, may find lodgment in these 
young hearts and perhaps spring up in blessing 
all the rest of their lives. The word that I would 
speak to you is on learning to be glad. It may be 
a new thought to you that we can learn to be glad , 
that we may practice gladness as we would our 
elocution or gymnastic lesson. You may have 
been accustomed to think that gladness comes 
from without, that it is the sunny day that shines 
upon us; that it is the luxurious house that 
makes a happy place; that it is a satisfactory 
wardrobe that brings peace of mind; that it is the 
deposit in the bank that secures joy to us. It is 
(82) 


Learning to be Glad. 


83 


true that all these things have to do with our 
gladness. It is true that when a bright day 
dawns, flooding the sky and the earth first with 
rosy light and then with the warm golden sun¬ 
shine, it is easier to be glad—it seems a natural 
impulse to speak some special joyous greeting to 
our fellows; just as Lowell has written of June, 

“ ’Tis as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green and skies to be blue, 

’Tis the natural way of living.” 

And yet our hearts may be so darkened by our 
own unhappy conceptions and forebodings that 
sunshine is quenched in the gloom. I know that 
the perfectly appointed house with artistic up¬ 
holstery and all beautiful belongings promises 
peace; and yet one discordant soul in the “house 
beautiful ” may make all its velvet and linen and 
polished woods, as dust and ashes. It is a com¬ 
fortable thing to have a wardrobe to our mind, 
but money cannot buy any coat or gown with 
magic to put joy into a joyless heart. If the 


8 4 


Words by the Way. 


heart be glad to begin with, then the sunny day, 
the beautiful house, the satisfying wardrobe, the 
favorable bank account, all these things conform 
to the oft-repeated law “ to him that hath shall 
be given ” and add gladness to gladness. 

But how can we form the habit of gladness? 
First, perhaps of all, by cultivating a spirit of 
thankfulness. We read in the beautiful story of 
“ Ramona ” that it is the custom in some Mexi¬ 
can households to greet the first beam of the 
morning sun with a glad hymn of thanksgiving. 
Our quieter northern temperament may not 
prompt us to this outward expression; but it is 
good for our souls if the first beam of the morn¬ 
ing finds us not indifferent to the daily coming 
of the blessed light, but sensitive to it as a mes¬ 
sage from God. It is good for our souls to ac¬ 
cept our daily bread as a gift straight from the 
hand each day of our Heavenly Father. It is 
good to speak within ourselves our thankfulness 
for the work of the day, the activities of body and 
mind. It is good to name our precious ones in 


Learning to be Glad. 


85 


the presence of the Eord. Every time we say in 
our hearts “ I thank thee, Heavenly Father,” w r e 
lift ourselves toward the region of perpetual glad¬ 
ness. 

We are used to the thought that our conduct 
has much to do with our joys. We have all 
learned to say “ Whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap.” We sing our evening hymn: 

“Sow love, and taste its fruitage pure; 

Sow peace, and reap its harvest bright; 

Sow sunbeams on the rock and moor, 

And find a harvest-home of light.” 

Between conduct and thought there is close 
connection. 

Whether it be true or not that thought is the 
mightiest power in the universe, it cannot be 
doubted that our habit of thought has much to 
do with the gladness of life. Holy George Her¬ 
bert wrote: 

“The man that looks on glass 
On it may stay his eye, 

Or if he pleaseth, through it pass, 

And then the heaven espy.” 


86 


Words by the Way. 


And so in our observation of things about us, 
it may easily come to be the habit of our minds 
to stay our thought upon the imperfections, the 
crudities that so often offend us. This is one of 
the special dangers of the young who have not 
yet had time to learn to 

“ Iyook largely, with lenient eyes 

Upon whatso beside us may creep and cling 
For the possible beauty that underlies 
The passing phase of the meanest thing.” 

When we have a garden plot to weed (and a 
good deal of life has to be given to weeding in 
some form or other) we can afflict ourselves at our 
task by counting the weeds, by groaning at their 
number and their size. But it is a better way for 
our souls to think, as we work, how clean and 
beautiful the garden plot will be when the task 
is over; how our roses and vines will thrive and 
bless us in their growth and bloom, that we have 
taken the hindrances out of their way. The 
awkwardness, the unloveliness of our neighbor 


Learning to be Glad, 


87 


offends us, obtrudes itself upon us, becomes like 
the irritating buzz of gnats to us, till we our¬ 
selves are untuned and give back the discordant 
notes that have put us out of harmony. But it is 
in the power of our thought to close our ears to 
discord, to keep our eyes fixed steadfastly upon 
that which is lovely, toward which we ourselves 
would grow. When evil or disturbing thoughts 
arise in our minds we can bring our will to bear 
upon them and turn away from them to that 
which is good and helpful. 

I have not learned how much it is in the power 
of thought to heal the diseases of the body, but 
it cannot be doubted that evil, discordant thought 
is poison to the body as to the soul, unnerving 
it, depressing its vital forces, and so creating dis¬ 
ease; nor can we doubt that harmonious thought, 
that gladness in the soul may keep the nerves in 
tune, and vitalize the whole physical structure. 

When we look over the great broad world there 
is much to disturb our serenity of thought, there 
are problems of human woe and wrong that are 


88 


Words by the Way . 


past our solving; but for all these things, we have 
done the best that we can, when we have striven 
to make our own lives, insignificant though they 
seem, centers of gladness and harmony. And so, 
if there be one among you who is led by this 
hour’s thought to study how to be glad, and how 
to seek the “peace that passeth understanding,” 
then this will have proved a golden message. 

And I will leave with you these words of a 
poet: 

“Take joy home, 

And make a place in thy great heart for her; 

And give her time to grow, and cherish her; 

Then will she come, and oft will sing to thee, 
When thou art working in the furrows; ay, 

Or weeding in the sacred hour of dawn. 

It is a comely fashion to be glad; 

Joy is the grace we say to God.” 


31 ionuarir £ook. 


Nature’s autumn is upon us. All the long 
summer days her industries have gone steadily 
on. In her countless laboratories the unseen 
forces, stimulated by sun and rain, have accom¬ 
plished what seems to be the ultimate purpose of 
all Nature’s activity—the ripening of seed; and 
barns are filled with golden grain, and vines are 
purple with fragrant grapes, and trees are bend¬ 
ing beneath their burden of ruddy fruit. And 
now, vacation days are just ahead for the busy 
earth. 

“ Grand is the leisure of the earth; 

She gives her happy myriads birth, 

And after harvest fears not dearth, 

But goes to sleep in snow-wreaths dim. M 

But our year, our human, college year, is in its 
springtime. The spent energies have been re- 
(89) 


90 


Words by the Way . 


newed by rest and change; the heart has had its 
day of joy in the home; merry-making has had 
its season, and now, sowing-time is upon us for 
‘ ‘ Commencement ’ ’ harvests ; indeed, for harvests 
ever after. At the springtime of the college year 
it is wise for us to pause and try to realize, as if 
they had been written to us, the words of Paul to 
the Galatians: “ Whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap ”—try to realize their signifi¬ 
cance for us at Commencement time and ever 
after. It is an old, old message, but ever with 
vital significance, for out of it, we might truly 
say, are the issues of life and death. When 
harvest time is truly upon us we have a vivid 
sense of the importance of sowing-time. This 
sweet and juicy corn is the harvest of the gar¬ 
dener’s greatest care in selecting seed and suiting 
the soil to its need; but that other planting per¬ 
haps is most disappointing, for its fine, promising- 
looking ears of corn are without any sweetness, 
because, alas! the seed was grown next to corn 
that did not set out to be sweet. Presently, 


A Forward Look. 


91 


when the chrysanthemum harvest is glowing in 
our borders, there may be moments of regret for 
those who let the planting time pass by, and will 
have no golden blossoms to take the place of the 
sunshine on a cloudy day. Shall I recall to your 
minds the week of final examinations with its 
terrors for those who, while others diligently 
sowed, lounged idly by, or gave themselves up to 
every distracting influence that came near them ? 
L,et memory do its perfect work, and bring back 
to such as need this stimulus, the failure of the 
last year. Then let the imagination do its per¬ 
fect work and carry you forward to the next 
harvest-time, and picture for you the incalculable 
satisfaction of work well done, and the self- 
respect of a place among approved and honored 
students. When the enticements of ease and fun 
obtrude themselves upon your working hours, 
almost irresistibly to young hearts, let it be your 
protection against them to remember that ease 
and merriment out of season turn to pain and sad¬ 
ness, and yield no sheaves for the harvest time. 


92 


Words by the Way. 


It may be that never again in all your experi¬ 
ence will the way of life be so straight and plain 
before you, so free from perplexing complica- : 
tions, as during these college years. Indeed, • 
you might without reproach, write at the head 
of your daily program, “ Sacred to myself!" For 
so it is ordered for you. All difficulties have 
been smoothed out of your way. When you 
wake in the morning it is to find a day most 
thoughtfully apportioned for your best good. 
Upon these hours sacred to your intellectual 
growth, no claims of duty to others will ever in¬ 
trude to interrupt your work, or to tear your 
heart with conflicting desires. The reminding 
bells have no purpose but to call you from place 
to place for your own best welfare. Does this 
picture of college life which is so mindful of the 
individual, stamp it a selfish life? Not necessarily. 
The Scripture Preacher declared: “To every¬ 
thing there is a season, and a time to every pur¬ 
pose under the heaven.” College life is the sea¬ 
son set apart for a specific work. Not only is it 


A Forward Look. 


93 


not selfish to do this work, but the student who 
devotes himself faithfully to it contributes to the 
scholarly atmosphere of the college, and becomes 
a stimulus to all who are associated with him. 

But to waste the opportunities of college life, 
not to do the thing for which it is appointed, that 
is to make college life worse than selfish. The 
idling, indifferent young man or woman becomes 
of necessity a plague spot in the college commu¬ 
nity, a centre of infection, scattering germs of 
idleness and indifference to corrupt its moral and 
spiritual atmosphere. Not to use the opportuni¬ 
ties of college is to forget the toil and sacrifice 
and yearning hopes that your presence here repre¬ 
sents; is to devastate the home hearts whose very 
life is bound up in your own. 

Accept with thankfulness this straight and 
plain pathway of duty, as a beautiful gift from 
God. Accept it, not only for the intellectual ac¬ 
quisitions you expect to gain, but as a school for 
training in faithfulness in the “ few things ” that 
is to make you “ ruler over many things.’’ Be- 


94 


Words by the Way. 


yond college life lie the stern exactions of busi¬ 
ness or professional life, and the many demands 
of the world’s work. The student who requires 
himself to meet college hours has gained one hard 
point toward business success, whose laws are 
inexorable. The student who has conscientious 
regard for the rights of other students, who has 
self-control enough to be silent when the rights 
of others demand silence—almost the only claim 
upon self-sacrifice—this young man or woman 
will be ready “when Fate the measure takes, 
and says, ‘ I find thee worthy, do this thing for 
me.’ ” The temptations to gross vice and mis¬ 
demeanor such as fill station-houses and peniten¬ 
tiaries do not enter into our college life. But it 
has its own temptations to try the soul of the stu¬ 
dent —refined temptations, perhaps they might be 
characterized, to match the circumstances of his 
life. The student who would feel his neighbor’s 
purse to be a very vulgar temptation, indeed not 
a temptation at all, has been known ruthlessly to 
take possession of his neighbor’s precious time. 


A Forward Look. 


95 


It has sometimes chanced in the past, that the 
young woman whose heart was easily touched by 
the poverty and misery of college settlement 
“neighbors ” ten miles away, and their need for 
sympathetic help, could calmly disregard the 
presence of her own neighbors on the hall, and, 
indifferent that she made herself a torment to 
them, indulge her own desire for turbulent and 
unseasonable fun-making. 

A beautiful passage in Isaiah suggests itself as 
a watchword for our new year. “ They helped 
every one his neighbor, and every one said to his 
neighbor, ‘Be of good courage.* ” What sun¬ 
shine and timely showers are to the spring plant¬ 
ing, that will it be to our college year if a spirit 
of helpfulness “every one to his neighbor” per¬ 
vades our college halls.- It will make an atmos¬ 
phere of gladness in which all good things can 
grow. 

It is impossible not to feel a thrill of joy at 
thought of the close bonds of student-life; the 
opportunities for noble friendships rooted in fel- 


9 6 


Words by the Way. 


lowship of purpose; the stimulating sympathy of 
kindred pursuits. ‘ ‘ How soon a smile of God 
can change the world !” And we, helping each 
other, are smiles of God to each other. Who 
would not be a smile of God ! 

Into the rich and inexhaustible subsoil of faith - 
fulness to the next duty, may our souls strike their 
roots, for growth toward God! Else must the 
spiritual life become like the growth from the 
“ stony places where there was not much soil.” 
Only thus can we come into living relations with 
God whose sun steadfastly rises every morning, 
whose “ seed-time and harvest do not fail.” 

We have the promise of Jesus who taught with 
“authority:” “If any man will do his will, he 
shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.” 
Religious emotion is a sweet influence in our 
lives to make dark places light, and rough places 
smooth, to bear us upward to the ‘ ‘ heights where 
lies repose;” but religious emotion has its sea¬ 
sons of ebb and flood. If days come in which 
spiritual fervor seems to abate, and we are uncer- 


A Forward Look. 


97 


tain about the doctrine, let us keep faithfully to 
the doing , as the sure anchor of our souls. Then 
shall we know again and again the inflowing of 
Heavenly Light, the assurance of Divine Love 
in all, and through all, and over all. 

7 


€l)tlbren of £igl)t. 


Jesus used a beautiful phrase in speaking to 
his disciples, “While ye have light, believe in 
the light, that ye may be the children of light. ’ ’ 
The Apostle Paul seems to love to perpetuate 
this expression; for to the Church at Ephesus he 
sends the exhortation, “Walk as children of 
light; ” and to the Thessalonians he writes, “Ye 
are all children of light, and the children of the 
day.” 

These beautiful words seem to have more vivid 
significance for us just now, when we are hun¬ 
gering and thirsting for sunshine. The winter 
days, however bright, have had the minimum of 
light; and it has chanced that the lengthening 
days have been shrouded in clouds, and still we 
wait the floods of sunshine that will rouse the 
sleeping rootlets into spring’s activity, and burst 
( 98 ) 


Children of Light . 


99 


the buds into blossom and leafage, and make the 
old earth clothe itself as fresh from the hand of 
God. The spring-time has never yet failed us— 
the tardiest elms have always been roused at 
last, and June has ever been “the high tide of 
the year. * * How can we be thankf ul enough , even 
if we consciously paused at the beginning of 
every hour to lift up our hearts in thanksgiving 
for the seeming miracles wrought over and over 
before our eyes. A little child was so glad in 
her heart that she lay down and kissed the sun¬ 
shine streaming across the carpet! It is not so 
very strange that there have been worshipers of 
the sun—this center, for us, of light and warmth, 
this artist, this physician. And it may be that 
the Eternal Sun, named sometimes “ a jealous 
God,” seeing how the hearts of his children could 
lift themselves no higher than the outward light 
and warmth, has accepted this adoration for the 
sun, as tribute to the sun’s Creator. 

Jesus loved this symbolism of the light. He 
never said; “lam the hurricane; I am the frost. 


IOO 


Words by the Way. 


Men are so selfish, so unworthy, I will scatter 
them with tempests, I will destroy them with 
frosts!” Instead, as the great teacher of men, 
he said: “I am the light of the world; he that 
followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but 
shall have the light of life.” 

How to live in the light—to be “children of 
light”—this is our life-problem. For thirty 
years Jesus was studying this problem, we may 
infer, in the retirement of home and shop. The 
only glimpses given us of his departures from 
home, are the pilgrimages with his parents, dur¬ 
ing his boyhood, to the temple in Jerusalem. 
After his meeting with the doctors in the temple, 
when he astonished those who heard him with 
his questions and answers, he came back to Naz¬ 
areth and was subject to his father and mother. 
“And he increased in wisdom and stature, and 
in favor with God and man.” Obedience was 
one of his early steps toward the light. The life- 
lessons of his father and mother, he accepted and 
wrought into the fabric of his own life, through 


Children of Light. 


IOI 


the wonderful processes by which experience is 
transmuted into power. The obedience to his 
father and mother was finally obedience to the 
Heavenly Father, with whom he came into such 
close union that he said “ I and my Father are 
one.” With absolute assurance he told his dis¬ 
ciples, “I am come a light into the world, that 
whosoever believeth in me should not abide in 
darkness.” ...” For I have not spoken of my¬ 
self ; but the Father which sent me, he gave me 
a commandment, what I should say.” Can we 
believe that Jesus came a light into the world? 
If this promise touches our need, the way will 
open clearly before us to become ‘ ‘ children of the 
day.” His words that have been saved for us, 
are so plain that the young child and the un¬ 
taught can understand them. There is no need 
of intervening mind between our mind and his; 
he speaks directly to the inmost soul. Our hope 
for unfailing illumination is in saturating our 
own souls in the spirit of his life. This we shall 
attain, not so much by study of theological sys- 


102 


Words by the Way . 


terns, as by making his simple, life-sustaining 
words our own, to be leaven in our souls till they 
are really transformed into the likeness of his. 
In the words of Jesus is the law of justice be¬ 
tween man and man; there is the root of courtesy 
that sweetens and dignifies all human relations; 
there is the secret of oneness with our Heavenly 
Father. 

It is a worthy ambition to work for a college 
degree—to strive to become leaders of men ;—it is 
our heavenly privilege to try to be “ children of 
the day ”—to give brightness where the world is 
clouded, and warmth where the world is chilled. 


®l)£ lUmiatrg of % Sabbatl). 


The suggestion has recently been made in our 
presence that this Sabbath day—the one day in 
seven set apart as a day of rest from our busy 
occupations—should be so used as to minister 
directly to our spiritual life. Believe me, there 
is wrapped up in this suggestion the vital lesson 
of life. You will remember how Jesus sustained 
himself in the wilderness with the lesson which 
he had learned in his youth from his regular at¬ 
tendance in the synagogue—“ man shall not live 
by bread alone, but by every word of God.” The 
life of the body is of necessity very exacting. 
Its “bread ” has come to mean much more than 
the grain of the harvest field. All the zones of 
the earth are made to minister to its desires for 
food and raiment. It is for the body that com¬ 
merce sends its ships over the seas, and covers 
(103) 


104 


Words by the Way . 


all lands with a net-work of railroads. Six days 
are filled with these labors for the body; nerves 
and muscles yielding up their last atom of power 
to the claims of agriculture, manufacture, and 
commerce and all their resultants. And this is 
legitimate activity in behalf of the body, whose 
capabilities are made to match this interesting 
earth of ours with its great prairies and fruitful 
fields, its forest-covered mountains and the mines 
within its depths. If only we learn that the life 
of the body is not all of life ! 

For days are sure to come when the body loses 
its integrity; and from commanding the forces 
of nature, from being master of machine or en¬ 
gine or counting-room it is laid low; its nerves 
like “sweet bells jangling out of tune; ” its mus¬ 
cles wasting under the touch of fever; its bones 
broken in some untoward accident. Nor are these 
days of disaster to the body sure to be postponed 
for long years to the season that we designate 
a “ripe old age.” Even youth is laid low. 
Happy-hearted youth, every member of the body 


The Ministry of the Sabbath . 


105 


thrilling with life and physical power—ready for 
all the delightful activities of vacation days, or 
undaunted on the athletic field; in an hour laid 
low by a mysterious malady, and brought under 
the beneficent hand of the surgeon. In an hour 
the joyous outlook of the happy home, or the 
spirited activities of college are exchanged for the 
severe simplicity and the narrow limits of the 
hospital-room, and days in which breathing is 
almost the only motion permitted to the impris¬ 
oned body. When such days come, and they 
are possible to all, if the life of the body has been 
all the life, they can be little more than days of 
living death. How freshly in our minds is the 
lesson that in one moment, one sudden stroke, 
the physical life of utmost fullness of health and 
strength may be yielded up! If the life of the 
body has been all the life, how feebly must the 
dwarfed spirit enter upon its new conditions ! 

And it is not alone physical disaster that may 
overtake us, and test our hold upon the life of the 
spirit. The spirit itself at school in this won- 


io6 


Words by the Way. 


drous world has lessons so severe that their very 
hardness seems proof that the human soul has 
the springs of its being in Infinite Strength—is 
in very truth the child of the Infinite. 

An admonition has come down to us from the 
far-away past: “ Remember now thy Creator in 
the days of thy youth, while the evil days come 
not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt 
say, I have no pleasure in them.” The sugges¬ 
tion of our President that this day should be so 
used as to minister directly to our spiritual life, 
is another way of saying “Remember now thy 
Creator in the days of thy youth !” In infancy 
and childhood every difficulty in our way, every 
hurt of our hands or heart took us to the tender 
mother or father, who stood to us as the centre 
and bounds of all things. We pass beyond in¬ 
fancy and childhood to difficulties and hurts that 
the tenderest parents cannot shield us from, nor 
remove, nor heal. Still our hearts cry out for 
guidance and help and healing. Happy is it for 
us if we have received such an inheritance of 


The Ministry of the Sabbath. 


107 


spiritual insight that we believe these appeals of 
our hearts are not made to empty air—that our 
; very need for help and guidance and healing pre¬ 
supposes a Helper and Guide and Healer. I love 
to believe that in the economy of the universe 
our Heavenly Father, infinite in tenderness as in 
wisdom and strength, has opened to us ‘nfinite 
resources for help and guidance and healing, 
upon which we may make claim just so far as 
our spiritual sight becomes clear. I am saying 
this to you, not as one who can see all the way 
to the end, but as one who has had such glimpses 
of spiritual realities as to give courage and belief 
that long to share themselves with younger learn¬ 
ers in the school of life. In one of our hymns are 
the lines— 

“ Lo ! all things are thine angels, Lord, 

That bring my God to me: 

O for the ear to hear their word! 

O for the eye to see!” 

A month ago I placed a Chinese lily bulb in a 
bowl of pebbles and water. These were the con- 


io8 


Words by the Way. 


ditions needed for its growth; and it has been so 
true to the law of its being that it has been “ a 
messenger of God ” to me. Just waiting for the 
right conditions were the embryo leaves and 
buds, that in the month of growth have made 
their way up into the light and are now tall and 
strong and beautiful—a living witness to a Power 
not ourselves that loveth beauty as well as right¬ 
eousness. A vessel of costly porcelain would 
give us satisfaction as man’s clever handiwork; 
but no syndicate with millions of dollars can com¬ 
mand the secret of the lily’s growth. This is of 
God. Is there one among you who vainly feels 
after God ? Then use an hour of this beautiful 
Sabbath day in planting in your window, if not a 
lily-bulb then a single grain of corn to be a mes¬ 
senger of God to you. These growing things 
whose mystery of creation man can never com¬ 
pass—really we may make them sacred shrines 
for the quickening of our spiritual life! 

But there are many “messengers of God,” 
waiting for access to our souls, to stimulate and 


The Ministry of the Sabbath. 


109 


strengthen our spiritual life, this beautiful Sab¬ 
bath day. This is what Ruskin says to his own 
nation of the Bible: 

“ It is the grandest group of writings existent 
in the rational world, put into the grandest lan¬ 
guage of the rational world in the first strength 
of the Christian faith by an entirely wise and 
kind St. Jerome, translated afterwards with 
beauty and felicity into every language of the 
Christian world; and the guide, since so trans¬ 
lated, of all the arts and acts of that world which 
have been noble, fortunate and happy; and by 
consultation of it honestly, on any serious busi¬ 
ness, you may always learn—a long while before 
your Parliament finds out—what you should do 
in such business, and be .directed perhaps to work 
more serious than you had thought of.” 

Is it the messenger with modern speech, putting 
into the language of the present day the “accents 
of the Holy Ghost,” who best reaches your ear? 

Then give an hour to Emerson this blessed 
day, and saturate your soul with his ideals of in- 


no 


Words by the Way . 


tegrity and courage, and go for another hour to 
the great poets whom Emerson designates “ the 
liberating gods.” ? 

Perhaps it is the man of science whose voice 
you are listening for. Then let Fiske’s ‘‘Idea 
of God” be a messenger to you; and in these 
‘ ‘ days of youth ’ 9 let these words of his be woven 
into the very fabric of the soul: ‘‘The infinite 
and eternal Power that is manifested in every 
pulsation of the universe is none other than the 
living God. . . . When from the dawn of life we 
see all things working together toward the evo¬ 
lution of the highest spiritual attributes of man, 
we know, however the words may stumble in 
which we try to say it, that God is in the deep¬ 
est sense a moral Being. The everlasting source 
of phenomena is none other than the infinite 
Power that makes for righteousness. Thou canst 
not by searching find him out; yet put thy trust 
in him, and against thee the gates of hell shall 
not prevail; for there is neither wisdom nor un¬ 
derstanding nor counsel against the Eternal.” 


The Ministry of the Sabbath. 


ill 


Thus, there are messengers for every type of 
mind, and it may be that some human life lived 
close beside us, right before our eyes, under the 
roof of home or college, may be a “ living epistle ’ ’ 
to us, ministering as no written message could to 
the growth of our spiritual nature. 

It is the high privilege of every human soul to 
be the revelation to others of just so much of the 
Divine as can be appropriated and lived. That 
life which is the ‘ ‘ way ’ ’ is a record that our Sab¬ 
baths cannot exhaust. If on each recurring Sab¬ 
bath we would come anew under the baptism of 
that spirit, then the worker in the same furrow 
as our own on the six busy days to follow, would 
find some rough places less wearisome, he would 
feel the cheer of sunshine even when clouds come 
over the face of the sun. And for ourselves it 
would mean an increasing consciousness of God. 
This has to be individual experience—this con¬ 
sciousness of God. It cannot be bestowed upon 
us—it has to come as the fruit of our effort to live 
up to our highest light. Without it we must go 


112 


Words by the Way. 


through life in the dark, stumbling and faltering 
and falling, wounding ourselves and hurting 
others; with it we “ walk in the light,” we renew 
our strength at inexhaustible fountains, we run 
and are not weary, we meet the ‘‘evil days” 
with courage, and in part disarm them of their 
terrors. Could any appointment of time be more 
beneficent than this, come down to us from the 
great leader of Israel—six days in which body, 
mind and heart are engaged to the utmost, then 
this pause in our activities—a day holy unto our¬ 
selves and to the Lord, in so far as it is made to 
minister to the spiritual life. 

If ‘‘in the days of thy youth” there come 
glimpses, however dim or fleeting, of the reality 
of the spiritual life now and here, cherish them, 
and they will grow clearer and stay longer, point¬ 
ing unto perfect day. 


®l)e “ Example.” 


You will remember that Jesus said, “I have 
given you an example , that ye should do as I 
have done to you.” It is true that these words 
were spoken to a small company of his disciples, 
pupils, friends he had named them, and they 
were spoken long centuries ago in far-away Jeru¬ 
salem, in that upper chamber where they were to 
celebrate together for the last time one of the 
rites of their Jewish church. The sandaled feet 
of that time and country made feet-washing one 
of the services of hospitality—a service reckoned 
the most menial of all. But at this supper no 
servant was called to do this service. Jesus him¬ 
self, their teacher, their elder brother, their 
guide, the greatest among them, laid aside his 
outer garment, girded himself with a towel, as 
the custom was, and bearing the basin of water 
8 (113) 


Words by the Way. 


114 

from one to another, in spite of the heartfelt pro¬ 
tests of Simon Peter, washed their feet and wiped 
them with the towel wherewith he was girded. 
He had known them very intimately as they 
walked the fields together, and met the multitudes 
drawn by his works of healing and his word of 
authority. Perhaps he had discovered that they 
had not yet caught the vital meaning of his mis¬ 
sion; perhaps he had glimpses in them of the 
Pharisaic spirit, which he was living his life and 
would die his death to overcome. One more ap¬ 
peal he would make to them, one more object 
lesson he would give them to lift them above the 
pettiness and benumbing influence of self-seeking 
and self-absorption, into the largeness and vitality 
and illumination of his own spirit. He shocked 
their sense of propriety—it did not belong to 
their caste to do this lowliest office. But we may 
believe that they could not lose the lesson of the 
hour; that they could not miss wholly the bap¬ 
tism of that spirit at one with God, who is not 
only the creator but the server of all! 


The “Example.” 


”5 


‘ ‘ So after he had washed their feet, and had 
taken his garments, and was set down again, he 
said unto them, Know ye what I have done to 
you ? 

“Ye call me Master and Ford: and ye say well; 
for so I am. 

“ If I then, your L,ord and Master, have washed 
your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s 
feet. 

“ For I have given you an example, that ye 
should do as I have done to you.” 

What plain, straightforward words these are! 
Can we possibly miss their meaning ! “I have 
given you an example, that ye should do as I have 
done to you.” Some one has said that the life of 
Jesus upon the earth was the human life of God , 
to show human beings how to live with one an¬ 
other. This is quite consistent with all the man¬ 
ifestations of God. For God pours out his own 
life upon the universe to serve his children, to be 
the energy of fructifying sunshine, to be the 
vitality of the harvest, to be the ministering rain- 


n6 


Words by the Way. 


drops, to be the joy-giving beauty of skies and 
blossoms. And then, we may well believe, that 
to make things still plainer for us, so plain that 
the meaning cannot be missed, he has really 
lived before us in the life of Jesus the ideal of 
human relationships. What is the glimpse given 
us of the childhood of Jesus? He came back 
from his remarkable meeting, when he was twelve 
years old, with the rabbis in the Temple, and was 
subject to his parents, and “increased in wisdom 
and stature, and in favor with God and man.” 
Not until he was thirty years old did he leave the 
privacy of his carpenter’s bench (you see how he 
respected hand-labor) to become the public 
teacher of men. In the meantime had he used 
his carpenter tools to build himself a temple, 
with a throne therein where he should sit in pur¬ 
ple and fine linen to dispense his message to men ? 
Instead of the Temple, he ‘ ‘ had not where to lay 
his head.” Instead of sitting upon a throne, he 
went about among men; virtue went out of him 
and healed their diseases; little children felt the 


The “ Example . 


sweetness of his heart of love; the accused before 
him were bidden to sin no more, and went away 
with new hope and courage. For one class of 
men he had a severe, stern message—for such as 
were very scrupulous about the letter of the law, 
and had no sense of its spirit; for such as made 
long prayers and devoured widows’ houses; for 
such as laid heavy burdens on men’s shoulders, 
and would not move them with one of their 
fingers; for such as honored him with their lips, 
while their hearts were far from him. 

The searching question which I would have us 
put to ourselves, is this—Has the life of Jesus 
among men any message for us; have we any part 
in that last Passover supper with his friends; did 
he give an example to us in that last service of 
hospitality, for us to do as he had done? We 
come of a long ancestry that has borne the name 
of Christ—does it have any vital meaning to us ? 
Are our relations to other people to be patterned 
in any degree after the “example” which he 
left ? The day is drawing very near for some of 


n8 


Words by the Way. 


you when you must take your places in the wider 
world of business and of social life, to make per¬ 
manent relations. You will have to meet the 
question whether the Christian name you bear 
means anything. And how is it right now and 
here in our smaller college world—is that exam¬ 
ple of service one to another the standard to 
which we try to fit our lives ? Perhaps there is 
still another question that should be asked—Is it 
worth while to try to fit our lives to that stand¬ 
ard? Would it make too much kindness and 
sweetness in our College world? Would there 
be danger of losing from our community what is 
known among students as class-spirit ? There is 
no hint in the story of Jesus that has come down 
to us that he found recreation in his intimate in¬ 
tercourse with his friends L,azarus and Mary and 
Martha, in things that mildly teased and incon¬ 
venienced them. Was his way “the more ex¬ 
cellent way ?’ ’ or has modern youth, that often 
craves a spice of mischief to give zest to recrea¬ 
tion, found the key to a higher development ? 


The “ Example . 


These are fair questions, and it is worth while that 
we should think about them. Because it is col¬ 
lege relations now that test our loyalty to the 
standard of Jesus—the affairs of the wider world 
do not yet claim us. Let us beware lest we find 
ourselves in that company that honor with the 
lips, while the heart is far from him ! 

The service of hospitality which Jesus used as 
an “example,” has no place among us; but the 
spirit of that feet-washing rite—how many ways 
there are of translating it into the language and 
activities of our college halls ! There is the loy¬ 
alty to college regulations imperative for the 
orderly and peaceable living together of scores 
of people. Does the “example ” that Jesus gave 
mean anything at this point ? There is the door¬ 
knob to be held; there is the precious hour of 
study to be undisturbed; there is the thoughtless, 
bitter word of criticism to be smothered behind 
the lips, lest it go forth a winged thing to sting 
and blight wherever it touches! Could our life 
be too kind and sweet, if we tried to fit it to the 
“ example” that Jesus gave ? 


120 


Words by the Way. 


I believe that if we can get a glimpse of the 
spirit in which Jesus lived, and along with that 
glimpse one aspiration of soul to live under the 
guidance and control of that spirit, we get a 
glimpse of the essence of the religious life. It is 
good for us to read of Jesus over and over, to try 
to fill ourselves with his spirit toward life and 
toward men. And let us sing with our hearts as 
with our lips: 

“ Shall I not lift my heart to Thee, 

And ask Thee, Lord, to rule in me ? 

“ If I be ruled in other wise, 

My lot is cast with all that dies, 

With things that harm, and things that hate, 

And roam by night, and miss the Gate— 

“ The happy Gate, which leads us where 
Love is like sunshine in the air, 

And Love and Law are both the same, 

Named with the everlasting name.” 


£je ®l)at ©Bercotnttl). 


The gift of life is very dear to us. We are 
made to cling desperately to life. We love its 
very uncertainties and risks, as well as its un¬ 
ending possibilities, and the joys that fill our 
cups to overflowing. And most of this company 
have already learned that life has many a hard 
place for us all. Our Father has honored his 
children, has given this sign of our kinship with 
himself as sons and daughters, that hard things 
lie at intervals all along our way of life. We are 
not even born upon our feet; but have to gain 
the mastery for these poor little members by trial' 
after trial, by stumbling over the inch-high ob¬ 
stacles in our way; and falling down and rising 
up over and over again. 

In the struggle to get upon our feet our cour- 
(121) 


122 


Words by the Way . 


age more than matches our feebleness, and we do 
not even remember our struggles. 

Neither are we born with ready mental equip¬ 
ment. The records of all the ages to which we 
are heir, are sealed to our infant eyes. What 
were it to us to find ourselves in the midst of all 
the books in the world, with no key to unlock 
their treasures ! But the day comes when the 
alphabet is mastered, the key is ours, and then 
begins the unending process of gathering and 
gathering the riches saved up from the past—and 
it may be, of adding our mite to the stores for the 
future. Hard places you know well there are, 
all the way along from the alphabet itself to the 
Master’s Degree; and only few of all the multi¬ 
tude attain the commanding heights of scholar¬ 
ship. 

And what of our spiritual part, that which 
urges on our faltering feet and will not let them 
fail—that which must illumine all our mental 
strivings if we would get from the intellectual 
life the very best it has to give? Here perhaps 


He That Overcometh. 


123 


is the very hardest striving of all, here are the 
straggles we can never give over. If it is hard 
to get upon our feet, so is it hard to keep the 
courage that is needed to go forward into the un¬ 
certain future. So it is hard to hold steadfastly 
to our right purposes, to “do the next thing” 
whether or not it be the pleasant thing. Hard is 
it in childhood to lisp the alphabet; so is it hard 
at your age and mine to keep our lips from speak¬ 
ing guile, to make our lips the fountain of life- 
cheering speech; so is it hard to learn the lessons 
set for us in youth in the disappointments and 
denied wishes that are a part of every life; so is 
it hard in mature age to rise above the inhar¬ 
monies that threaten all the sweetness of life, 
into the region of perpetual shining; hard to 
carry our burdens with such calmness and 
strength that their weight need not fall upon 
other souls; hard to attain to such a realizing 
sense of the everlasting arms that we may know 
our weakness to be supplemented by their 
strength. 


124 


Words by the Way. 


It is a great gain to us to give up our search 
after an easy life; to accept it as soon as we make 
the discovery that we are “to wrestle, not reign.’ * 
Whom do you most respect among your fellows ? 
Is it the young man or woman whose energy is 
chiefly shown in reducing work to the minimum, 
who makes a program that just satisfies the bare 
requirement of the law, and then lives a parasite 
upon the efforts of his neighbors, starving him¬ 
self upon their honey, instead of getting the 
growth and vigor of his own visits to the flowers 
of literature and science and mathematics? In 
your hearts you pity him, perhaps despise him. 
The instant we present a firm face to the hard 
things of life, accepting them as a part of our 
portion, and meeting them with determination, 
the victory over them is begun. It is with the 
hope of beginning this victory, that I would place 
this thought of courage before you. There is a 
beautiful promise to be cherished in our heart of 
hearts. It is in that chapter of Revelation which 
describes a new heaven and new earth; for the 


He That Overcometh. 


125 


first heaven and the first earth were passed away, 
the holy city coming down from God out of 
heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her hus¬ 
band. The seer not only saw the vision of all 
things made new, but he heard a voice out of 
heaven saying, ‘ ‘ Behold, the tabernacle of God 
is with man, and he will dwell with them, and 
they shall be his people, and God himself shall 
be with them.” And the voice spoke also this 
promise, ‘ ‘ He that overcometh shall inherit all 
things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my 
son.” You see that all things are promised to 
him that overcometh—that all possibilities are 
included in the overcoming. 

And I believe the overcoming depends upon 
our sense of God. If our sense of ourself \ our own 
will, our own courage, our own strength fills all 
our horizon, is all we have to depend upon, we 
can get but little way in the overcoming. Our 
finite resources are soon spent. How can we 
grow in this sense of God ? If we need outward 
helps, they are all about us in the things that 


126 


Words by the Way. 


have been made by the Infinite Power whose 
name is God. Great temples and cathedrals, 
themselves inspiring us with awe and reverence, 
are only the handiwork of men. But the sky 
over our heads, the sunshine flooding the earth, 
these trees close at hand bared for their deep 
winter sleep, the primrose, blooming in our sunny 
windows—all these are straight from the hand of 
God. No man with all the helps that science has 
to offer, can make the primrose seed, or root, or 
leaf, or beauteous blossom. If then, we need an 
outward manifestation of God, let his flowers be 
ministers to us. L,et one leaf of his, which no 
man can make, and is always at our hand, let 
this be written over with the name of God for us, 
and turn our thought in the direction of our high¬ 
est conception of what is true and good—God-like, 
and this conception will ever grow with our 
growth. Right in the midst of our work or play 
an instant’s thought of God flashing through our 
minds will bring us illumination on our way, an 
increase of strength for our overcoming. These 


He That Overcometh. 


127 


momentary, unplanned for uplifts of thought 
toward the Infinite, O let us cherish them as very 
.steps toward God! Our appointed times for 
upward-reaching thought, our silence before 
meals, our assembling each morning before the 
day’s work, our meeting here—all these miss 
their deepest meaning for us, if they prove not 
the school in which we learn how to keep our 
souls open every moment toward the Divine. 
And then, God gives us so many helps beside his 
trees and flowers. How many times he speaks 
to us through the lips of his men and women— 
how many great thoughts he gives us to grow 
on! Beside the outward help of the primrose 
leaf, we can wear in each pocket, and close to our 
hearts, some of these great thoughts. If not in 
our pocket, then in our hearts let us wear this 
saying of Jesus, “I and my Father are one— 
whosoever shall do the will of my Father which 
is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister 
and mother;” and this aspiration of the psalmist, 
“ As the heart panteth after the water-brooks, so 


128 


Words by the Way. 


panteth my soul after thee, O God.” And when 
we come face to face with hard things, let us re¬ 
new strength and courage and hope, with the 
beautiful promise—“He that overcometh shall 
inherit all things!” 


<£!)£ ®l)ougl)t of tl)£ fjcart. 


“As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” 
“ Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it 
are the issues of life.” We hear these words 
pronounced over and over again, but do we real¬ 
ize how rich they are in meaning, how vital their 
message is to us ? The every-day sunshine, the 
every-day cup of cold water, the “ daily bread,” 
the almost daily dandelion’s cheerful gold—all 
these every-day things we may come to accept as 
ours by right, and with no thrill of acknowledg¬ 
ment. It is good for our souls to make our first 
waking-thought an acknowledgment of the 
blessed gift of a new day and its sunshine; and 
so it is good for our souls to pause upon these 
old, old words as familiar to us as the old, old 
sunshine, and try to fill our souls full of their 
meaning. 

9 


(129) 


Words by the Way . 


130 

“As he thinketh in his heart.” Yes, this is 
the keynote of life, and all of life’s experiences 
are chords made from the thought of the heart. 
Musicians speak of the “ dominant ” of the musi¬ 
cal chord. There is a “ dominant ” in our hearts 
that gives tone and color to all we do. If it 
chance that this “ dominant ” be the thought of 
self, alas for the poverty of life! It is true that 
self \ thyself, myself, each self of all the great con¬ 
gregation of man is a thing of dignity, of nobil¬ 
ity in its fractional place, as a part of a great 
whole, each necessary to all the other parts, each 
bearing the stamp of the Divine. But when the 
thought of the heart turns inward upon itself, 
separates the infinitesimal self from the perfect 
whole, as a sole object to live for, to be absorbed 
in, to build up, to gratify at any cost to other 
selves, or without any thought of other selves, 
then its riches only make poorer; then this mag¬ 
nified self grows away from the Divine Pattern, 
and so away from loveliness. While the little 
separated self would make all things tributary to 


The Thought of the Heart. 


131 

itself, it is undermining its own foundations, try¬ 
ing to establish itself upon a quicksand. But let 
the “ dominant ” in our hearts be the thought of 
self related to other selves, then will life be in 
very truth “a grand, sweet song.” Isolated 
self becomes a monstrosity, a deformity. Self 
related to other selves develops harmoniously, re¬ 
straining whatever would be excessive and obtru¬ 
sive upon others, stimulating whatever is feeble 
and insufficient. Out of this “ dominant ” in our 
hearts grow all the possible harmonies of life. 
Self related to other selves cannot be over-reach¬ 
ing, cannot even wish its own upbuilding at the 
cost of other selves; cannot take that which is not 
its own; cannot despoil that which is not its own; 
must from its own fullness minister to the want 
of other selves; will, in sweet humility, renew 
itself at fresher fountains. It is this ‘ ‘ dominant ” 
in the heart that binds us to the heart of God and 
makes the religious life. For the life of God as 
it is lived before us in the “earth, which is His,” 
in the “sun and stars, which are His” is a life 


IS 2 


Words by the Way. 


of ceaseless ministry, pouring itself out that the 
sun and stars may shine; that the earth may 
yield its increase; that in Him we may 4 ‘ live and 
move and have our being. ’ ’ 

I do not doubt that many an earnest soul 
among you is striving toward the religious life. 
Theological teaching in the past has made the 
religious life seem of most difficult attainment; 
and, perhaps, it might be said also that theolog¬ 
ical teaching has made the religious life seem not 
altogether lovely. How can our poor little in¬ 
tellects grasp the subtleties of foreordination, and 
justification, and transubstantiation! How can 
warm, human hearts be greatly drawn to the iso¬ 
lation. the separateness of life that theology has 
prescribed for the seeker after the religious life! 
The Great Teacher was not a theologian. He 
went about doing good. Out of the abundance 
of his own spiritual life, the very real presence of 
the Father, he ministered to the hungering and 
thirsting souls of men, and healed their physical 
ailments. In the holy silences that are recorded 


The Thought of the Heart . 


133 


of his short public service he teaches us how he 
constantly renewed his own spiritual life. In the 
suggestion of his intimate, heart-warming rela¬ 
tion to a few friends we are taught of the blessed 
ministry of friendship. And, then, when he was 
abroad in the fields of Palestine he made the 
lilies his helpers. His life has made clear to us 
what was the thought of his heart. While he 
was yet a boy the thought of his heart was “ his 
Father’s business”—to be strength for the weak; 
to be sight for the blind; to manifest to every 
human soul how it is possible to be at one with 
the Father. He has shown us the way. If we 
can make it the thought of our hearts, young and 
old, as he did—“ to be about our Father’s busi¬ 
ness,” then shall we lay hold of the secret of his 
power, then shall we attain to the religious life. 
And let us believe this: That the “Father’s 
business ’ ’ for us to do is the service that appears 
along the daily path in which we are appointed 
to walk. We are in danger of missing our oppor¬ 
tunity by looking too far away—to some battle- 


134 


Words by the Way. 


field of wounded soldiers, to some plague-smitten 
city, to some region of intellectual darkness; and 
because we do not find ourselves in these far-away 
places we are in danger of feeling ourselves ab¬ 
solved from our “Father’s business.” For you 
and for me it may be just the matter of keeping 
our hand on the door-knob, or modulating our 
voices; just the matter of restraining our im¬ 
pulses to disorder; just the matter of being 
patient with other people’s short-comings; just 
the matter of keeping the cheerful heart to smile 
and shine in cloudy weather. For us it may be 
just these simple, every-day, ever-present little 
services that are our “Father’s business.” If 
we can make this the thought of our heart, we 
shall have entered upon the religious life, and we 
shall learn that the religious life thus lived makes 
all gladness more glad and all brightness more 
bright. It has its seasons of hard work and may 
lead us through some rough climbing, but it has 
its times, too, for merry-making, its times to 
dance, and its times for athletic prowess. Let us 


The Thought of the Heart. 


135 


make it the thought of our heart to do our 
“Father’s business,” and let us make it the 
habit of our souls to retire into the holy silences 
in which we may renew our spiritual strength. 
In the midst of our busiest occupation we may 
for one moment, at intervals, withdraw ourselves 
into a holy silence in which the soul can reach 
up to the Infinite and feel itself clothed upon 
with power. 


®l)e Stigmata. 


A favorite theme with many early painters 
is St. Francis of Assisi receiving the stigmata. 
The legend which suggests this picture is thus 
recorded by Mrs. Jameson: It is related by his 
biographer, that Francis had spent forty days of 
fasting in his solitary cell upon a mountain, pass¬ 
ing the hours in rapturous adoration of his cru¬ 
cified Saviour until finally there was vouchsafed 
him a vision of a seraph hovering near him and 
bearing between his wings the wounded form of 
the Crucified One. It is further recorded that 
“when the vision had disappeared, and he had 
recovered a little from its effect, it was seen that 
in his hands, his feet, and side he carried the 
wounds of our Saviour. ’ * By some writers this 
report is regarded as history rather than legend, 
and is quoted as a well-attested example of the 
(136) 


The Stigmata. 


137 


power of thought to produce in the hands and 
feet and side of St. Francis the very wounds 
which he had been contemplating with rapturous 
intensity. The artists represent this scene with 
lines like rays of light passing from the wounds 
of the crucified Jesus to the hands and feet and 
side of the adoring St. Francis. 

If, by days of wrapt contemplation we might 
receive upon our hands and feet and side the im¬ 
print of the cruel wounds inflicted upon the body 
of the crucified Jesus, what would it avail! 
Could any saving power for others proceed from 
our scarred hands and feet and side? Would 
these imprinted scars make our hands more firm 
upon the door-knobs to save the slamming of our 
doors; more gentle hands in ministering to others? 
Would these simulated scars upon our feet make 
steadfast feet to walk in the right way, and 
swifter feet in the service of others ? But there 
is a very beautiful and helpful suggestion in this 
story of St. Francis. Think what it might be to 
us to establish these lines of communication, not 


138 


Words by the Way. 


with the wounded body of Jesus, but with his 
divinely-illumined soul. And I believe that it is 
in the power of thought thus to bind our souls to 
his, that light may shine from his mind to our 
mind, that virtue may pass from his great soul to 
our lesser soul, that the strength from his mighty 
heart may supplement our faltering weakness. 
In meditation upon his words which were made 
vivifying words by the life out of which they 
proceeded, we may sit at the feet of the great 
Teacher in this far-away century. Not, then, 
by fixing our thought upon the bleeding -wounds 
made by his persecutors can we best make our¬ 
selves his aids in carrying forward his work 
among men, but by receiving into the deepest 
places of our soul, as the clay receives the im¬ 
print of the potter, the beautiful “Blesseds” 
which he pronounced to the multitudes listening 
upon the mountain. And I would have you see 
how it is that these years of college life may be 
the time of all others in which to establish the 
invisible and strong ties with the soul of the 


The Stigmata. 


139 


great teacher. You remember the blessing which 
he spoke upon hunger and thirst—the hunger 
and thirst for righteousness which means right¬ 
ness and straightness and wholeness. Out in the 
great world there are so many other hungers and 
thirsts that may make themselves felt more than 
the hunger and thirst for righteousness! We 
know that men and women rise in the morning 
from wearisome nights, to struggle the whole day 
through with the hunger and thirst of their 
bodies, so imperative that the soul is paralyzed 
and ceases to know any hunger or thirst. Women 
stitch and stitch from early morning till long past 
nightfall; men mine in the depths of the earth, 
and feed the furnaces in the depths of ocean 
steamers—all for the demands of bodily hunger 
and thirst! How can it be expected of such that 
their souls shall open toward righteousness ? But 
in college life what may not be expected of the 
soul! The claims of the body are all provided 
for. No one of us in this college community 
wakes in the morning to the torturing problem: 


140 


Words by the Way. 


“How am I to earn my bread this day?” By 
the student’s own industry and prudence, or by 
the thrift—it may be by the sacrifice of father 
and mother—the daily bread is all secured, and 
the same providences have made it unnecessary 
to ‘ * take thought for raiment. ’ ’ Really the years 
of college life may be as truly the life of the spirit 
as if we had put off mortality and entered upon 
what we name the heavenly life. For, not only 
are all physical needs anticipated, but the way 
of the student is made straight and plain before 
him hour by hour, directly toward his goal. No 
demand of the household can call the college girl 
from her study to meet some emergency in the 
family arrangements; no busy days of harvest or 
of trade are allowed to take thought and time of 
the college man from his allotted work. 

If, then, there is the hunger and thirst divine, 
college life becomes a perpetual feast. “ Blessed 
are they that hunger and thirst after righteous¬ 
ness; for they shall be filled.” The right train¬ 
ing of the intellect is a part of righteousness. 


The Stigmata . 


141 

God is all-righteous—the right training of the 
intellect is to open our eyes to the immanence of 
God! Every step in science is really a search 
after the methods of God, to find out how he 
made and how he manages the universe. Every 
mathematical formula is really the equivalent 
of “thus saith the Eord.” All history and 
literature are the records of man’s progress 
toward God. This is the high plane of living to 
which the college invites you. It is at this 
height that college life yields its best treasures, 
and its enduring satisfactions. Did it chance 
that in your outings in the summer vacation, you 
left the lowlands some day, and climbed, it may 
be with toilsome climbing, to the top of a moun¬ 
tain ? Can you ever forget how at each step of 
the ascent the prospect broadened until the near 
things of the valley that had filled your eye were 
dwarfed in the distance, and here a flowing 
stream was a line of light, and there an unsus¬ 
pected lake reflected the sky, and other moun¬ 
tain tops came into view, green and flower- 


I 4 2 


Words by the Way. 


bedecked, and perhaps white at the top with 
unwasting snows? Then did you recall Words¬ 
worth’s words: 

“ Who come not hither ne’er shall know 
How beautiful the world below.” 

So is it true that those who do not reach the 
higher planes of life, cannot know how beautiful 
life may be. Only as we go upward, do the best 
things come into view, and the poorer which we 
have thought the best, fade away in the distance. 

There is another of the ‘ ‘ Blesseds ’ ’ spoken by 
Jesus upon the mountain which helps us to see 
the best things of life. “ Blessed are the pure in 
heart, for they shall see God.” Whoever sees 
God has in his soul the everlasting Tight to make 
plain his pathway, and to shine in the valleys of 
life through which we have sometimes to go. 
You have seen plate glass so clear that the light 
passes through it undimmed, and it seems a 
medium for outer air as well as for light. So, 
purity of heart with no admixture of malice or 


The Stigmata. 


143 


of envy, with no unclean thought, lets into the 
soul the floods of light which are a revelation of 
God. 

One more of the “Blesseds” I would fix our 
thought upon as St. Francis of Assisi dwelt in 
thought upon the “riven side” of Jesus. I 
would have graven upon our souls “ Blessed are 
the peacemakers !” On that day of your moun¬ 
tain-climbing did you come to cloud or tempest? 
Then, how difficult and uncertain your steps be¬ 
came. And how you blessed the sunshine that 
presently scattered the clouds and sent you on 
your clear way rejoicing. The makers of peace 
are sunshine in our lives, and shine away the 
clouds that sometimes settle down upon us. The 
makers of peace are they that fit themselves to 
law. They see in law not a hard and oppressive 
rule of life to be evaded and resisted; but rather, 
the gentle appeal of order that fits everything to 
its right place, and leaves no chance for the de¬ 
stroying friction of things misplaced; and makes 
all lovely things possible. The inner joys of the 


144 


Words by the Way. 


peacemaker—the acknowledged son and daugh¬ 
ter of God, we can only know as we reach this 
beautiful estate; but how well we know the 
blessedness it is to have the makers of peace 
among us, to shine for us, to make the atmos¬ 
phere about us in which we can see our upward 
way. 

Shall we begin our college year with these three 
‘ ‘ Blesseds ’ ’ before our eyes, to be graven upon 
our hearts; to be a bond between our souls and 
the soul of the great Teacher; to make our col¬ 
lege life the wholesome and happy and beautiful 
thing so easily possible to it! 

“ Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after 
righteousness.” 

“ Blessed are the pure in heart.” 

“ Blessed are the makers of peace.” 


®l)e ©rmt Benebution. 


Let us allow imagination to have its perfect 
work, and take us into the presence of the great 
Teacher, as he sat upon the mountain side and 
prophesied in part, and in part instructed his 
disciples who had followed him into the solitude 
of the Mount of Olives. It was in this hour that 
he spoke of the faithful and wise servant, made 
ruler over the household, and happily found dis¬ 
pensing his master’s bounties when suddenly 
surprised by his return. He taught them of the 
kingdom of heaven, through the parable of the 
virgins wise and foolish—the sorrowful virgins 
left without in the darkness because, alas! they 
lived for the hour, and forgot that the sun does 
not always shine;—the happy virgins whose 
trimmed and burning lamps found them ready 
for attendance upon the bridegroom, when the 
io (145) 


146 


Words by the Way. 


door opened for entrance to the marriage festival. 
Again he enforced his teaching concerning the 
kingdom of heaven with the lesson of the one 
talent buried in the earth that it might be re¬ 
turned intact to the “hard master;” and the 
five talents diligently used until they gained not 
only five talents more, but with them that hap¬ 
piest reward, “Enter thou into the joy of thy 
Lord! ” Then he directed their thought forward 
to that great day, apparently much in their 
minds, when the Son of man should come in his 
glory, and all the holy angels with him, and, 
seated upon his throne, he should see all the 
nations gathered before him, to be separated one 
from another as the shepherd divideth his sheep 
from the goats, the sheep on his right hand, the 
goats on the left. Let us listen from our inmost 
.souls to this climax of the hour’s teaching; let us 
lose no accent of the great benediction : * ‘ Come, 
ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom 
prepared for you from the foundation of the 
world; ” nor the response to the glad surprise of 
those who heard it: 


The Great Benediction. 


147 


“For I was an hungered and thirsty, and ye 
gave me meat and drink; a stranger, and ye took 
me in; naked and sick and ye clothed and visited 
me; I was in prison and ye came unto me. 

“ Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto 
me.” 

How plain this teaching is. From the founda¬ 
tion of the world the Father has prepared a king¬ 
dom for his children. It is not a kingdom after 
the manner of men, to be passed on from father 
to eldest son; to be administered in august state, 
maintained in splendor and great sumptuousness, 
exalting the few and abasing the multitude; 
wrested from one and another ruler by the deadly 
might of the sword. It is not a kingdom of the 
learned, to be earned by college and university 
degrees; officered by theologian or metaphysi¬ 
cian or scientist. It is not a kingdom whose 
divine rights are vested in wealth. It is not a 
kingdom limited and bounded by the vision of 
men,—the narrowness, the short-sightedness, the 
blinding pride of men. 


148 


Words by the Way. 


It is the domain of the Holy Spirit—the king¬ 
dom whose bounds stretch away into infinity; 
the kingdom whose infinite possessions and re¬ 
sources of spiritual things, are as open as the 
Infinite Heart itself to every child of the Father. 
Towards this kingdom the great Teacher is con¬ 
tinually turning our thought. Do we believe 
that he knew whereof he spoke ? In these plain 
and simple lessons to his disciples is there really 
a chart for the wayfarer toward the Heavenly 
Kingdom ? 

How glad that master was, when returning 
unexpectedly, he found the trusted servant ad¬ 
ministering the affairs of the house as if they 
were his very own, acting from a law of honor 
written upon his heart. Are we not all as glad, 
when our interests in the hands of another—even 
the sweeping and dusting of our room—are care¬ 
fully attended to ? If all the places of trust the 
whole world over, from the humblest service of 
the household, and the children gathering up 
their blocks, to the weighty matters of the State, 


The Great Benediction. 


149 


were filled by the faithful, think of the great sum 
of gladness the whole world over! Perhaps the 
great Teacher need not have added another line 
to his lesson of the faithful servant. That glad 
and happy master could not keep all his gladness 
and happiness to himself—it would shine in his 
eyes, it would be heard in the tone of his voice; 
he would have to be as kind as the servant had 
been faithful. There would be a very contagion 
of gladness in the atmosphere about hitn. Glad¬ 
ness must be a part of the blessedness of the 
Heavenly Kingdom, and gladness makes it easier 
to be good. It would seem that the serva?its of 
the world, all of us who are in any capacity the 
doers , have largely in their keeping the gladness 
of the world and its goodness. This is so plain 
and easy to the understanding that we are in 
danger of missing the parable’s great signifi¬ 
cance. Easy to the understanding is the story 
of the faithful servant, but it does not follow that 
it is easy to be faithful. Opposed to faithfulness 
are our love of ease, our inertia, our indifference, 


Words by the Way. 


150 

it may be our selfishness. We need to keep close 
to the great Teacher, to be baptized, if we may, 
with his spirit which shall quicken our own, or 
rebuke our own, or remind us continually of the 
gladness that is waiting for us to make. 

To be bidden to the great festivals that life is 
perpetually offering, and to see the door closing 
against us because we have not made ourselves 
ready to enter in—that is loss and defeat, indeed! 
There is no sex in the parable of the foolish vir¬ 
gins. Wasted opportunity is a disaster that 
threatens the young, whether men or maidens. 
The things that have a right to give pleasure for 
the hour easily establish themselves for the day 
with the pleasure-loving young, and the day 
grows to a year. The oil of life is burned and 
burned—there is no storing up of that which may 
be transmuted to light and joy. When they 
would enter into the perpetually bright and shin¬ 
ing things of the unfolding soul they cannot pass 
the threshold. 

The great Teacher told in simplest words what 


The Great Benediction. 


151 

the test, the “ examination,” will be in that day 
when each soul is chosen for the “right hand” 
or the “ left ” of the King. There will be no test 
of generalship ; no requirement of wealth—even 
intellectual attainments are not measured on that 
day. Nor does the love of a man for his own 
count on that great day. In that radiant Pres¬ 
ence—the Son of man and all the holy angels— 
this is the final test, “ How have ye served the 
least of the brethren ,” those so poor that they had 
neither meat nor drink nor clothing; those so 
despised, so unworthy, doubtless, that the prison 
separated them, as it would leprosy, from their 
fellows ? Over and over, the great Teacher reit¬ 
erated this lesson of service to the ‘ ‘ least of the 
brethren”—the lesson cannot be escaped. He 
insisted that the rich and the learned and the 
happy are to be literally a good Providence to 
the poor and the ignorant and the miserable. It 
was another form of his injunction, “ Be ye per¬ 
fect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” 
It is only Perfection—only Infinite Patience—that 


152 


Words by the Way. 


can make the sun to rise, and the fructifying 
showers to fall, and seed-time and harvest to be 
unfailing for the unjust as well as the just, the 
unmerciful and mean, as well as the kind and 
noble. This is the standard to which the great 
Teacher unswervingly holds us. He knew that 
we will love our own ; that we will pour out our 
heart’s blood in utter self-abnegation for our own, 
who are our other selves. What need to exhort 
us to be friendly with the fortunate, to visit the 
refined and lovely and entertaining—to help them 
that can help again ? All this is as easy to us as 
for the bee to seek the honey laden flowers. He 
set us the harder task, as worthy of the sons and 
daughters of God. He honors us as children of 
the Most High when He will not let us escape 
His simple, plain lessons that we should be faith¬ 
ful servants ; that our lamps are to be kept filled 
and burning for the sudden opening of oppor¬ 
tunities ; that we are to carry on our souls ‘ ‘ the 
least of the brethren,” and see to it that in so far 
as we can, we make their needs a part of our own 


The Great Benediction. 


153 


life. In proportion as we are competent, we are 
to try to make good their deficiencies ; if they do 
not see which way opportunity lies, we are to try 
to direct their sight; we are to encourage the 
faltering ; we are to prod the indifferent; it is to 
be a part of the problem of life to do away with 
the helplessness of the helpless—that which can¬ 
not be remedied is to be borne by the able. It is 
plain to see that if this teaching of Jesus could 
take possession of our souls, and leaven all our 
thought, it would make an “earthly paradise” 
of this earthly life. When the welfare, the happy 
journeying, of our neighbor, the greatest or the 
least, is our heartfelt interest, then shall we be in 
accord with the great Teacher, and we may hope 
to be sharers in the glad surprise of those upon 
whose ears falls the great Benediction : Come, ye 
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom pre¬ 
pared for you from the foundation of the world. 


$l)t Brtaii of fCtfe. 


Whkn Rome was just beginning to be Rome, 
and Greece was very young, and peoples now 
historic had not yet begun to make records—a 
teacher in those far-away centuries left a message 
that we cannot doubt is from God. It was 
spoken for all time. The records of that period 
show life to have had many of the elements of 
modern life. Great progress had been made in 
mechanics and in art. Then as now the love for 
splendor was catered to. Costly fabrics were 
woven of cotton, silk, and wool with threads of 
gold, for the adornment of the person. The 
“bravery of the tinkling ornaments’’ of their 
women is written about, and their “bonnets” 
and ‘ ‘ changeable suits of apparel ’ ’ and ‘ ‘ crisp¬ 
ing pins” and “bracelets.” Magnificent tem¬ 
ples were built for the gods of the Assyrians and 
(i54) 


The Bread oj Life. 


155 


the Jehovah of the Israelites. But, with all that 
art had attained to, and the refinements that civ¬ 
ilization had reached, and the ‘'treasures of gold 
and silver of which there was no end,” the 
Israelites were pronounced a ‘‘sinful nation, a 
people laden with iniquity.” There were those 
who ‘‘ called evil good and good evil,” who ‘‘put 
darkness for light and light for darkness.” Woe 
was pronounced unto them that were “ mighty 
to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle 
strong drink;” upon such as ‘‘decreed unright¬ 
eous decrees;” that “ turned aside the needy from 
judgment;” “ that took away the right from the 
poor;” ‘‘that made widows their prey;” ‘‘that 
robbed the fatherless.” This is a hint of the his¬ 
tory made seven centuries before Jesus taught in 
Palestine. But it has not a strange sound to us. 
True, it has come out of the Hebrew tongue; 
but more than a score of centuries has not so far 
removed us in experience that the story should 
suggest another race of men. The bravery of 
the rustling garments of our women, and their 


Words by the Way. 


156 

“bonnets” and “changeable suits of apparel” 
are still a favorite, sometimes an absorbing, 
theme. No morning newspaper is sent out to a 
waiting community that is not blackened with its 
records of “ those who put darkness for light.” 
Yesterday it was the story of the man who had 
made evil his good and ended his career upon 
the gallows; to-day it is the tale of young lads 
who, poisoned by the corrupting literature of the 
cheap press and attempting to become the des¬ 
peradoes whose atrocities had inflamed their im¬ 
aginations, find themselves stopped in their crim¬ 
inal courses to spend the rest of their lives in the 
living tomb of the State’s prison; to-morrow it 
may be the report of the sweat-shops in which 
“ widows are made a prey,” and “ the fatherless 
are robbed.” And every daj^’s record shows 
that there are men who offer themselves as states¬ 
men to guard the interests of the nation, and 
then bend every effort toward their own advance¬ 
ment, regardless of the nation’s needs. 

In those far away centuries an illuminated 


The Bread of Life. 


157 


teacher appeared among men. The beautiful 
story of his consecration, let us treasure in our 
hearts. He saw, in vision, the Lord sitting upon 
a throne guarded by Seraphim crying one to 
another “ Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts: 
the whole earth is full of his glory !” Then he 
said, “ Woe is me! for I am undone; because I 
am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the 
midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes 
have seen the King—the Lord of Hosts.” But 
one of the Seraphim flew unto him, and touched 
his lips with a live coal from off the altar, and 
said, “ Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine 
iniquity is taken away.” Then was he conse¬ 
crated to the Lord, and heard the voice of the 
Lord saying, “ Whom shall I send, and who will 
go for us,” and replied, “ Here am I; send me.” 
Thus, with cleared vision and quickened hearing, 
Isaiah came to his people with this message: 
“Wherefore do ye spend money for that which 
is not bread ? and your labor for that which sat- 
isfieth not?” Thus was he made a teacher to all 


Words by the Way. 


158 

generations. His message this summer morn¬ 
ing, more than a score of centuries after it was 
uttered, is a living message to us, as from lips 
newly touched by a live coal from God’s altar. 

Only that is bread which buildeth up. We 
know this is true of the physical body. If we 
were fed only upon sweets and dainties, how soon 
the tissues would degenerate. When our athletes 
are about to put themselves to the test for fleet¬ 
ness of foot and endurance of muscle, they spend 
their money for that which will build up. They 
are taught a lesson which, second for the moment 
to the satisfaction of victory or the anguish of 
defeat, should remain with them long after the 
pulses have quieted, and the supreme importance 
of minute fractions of time and space have given 
place to the stress of the life work. For the goal 
which they have pledged themselves to reach, 
they forego the tempting morsels that would 
please the palate, but would not go to the build¬ 
ing up of the muscles upon which victory de~ 
pends. In this brief season of training they are 


The Bread of Life . 


159 


at the height to which the Great Prophet sum¬ 
mons us all. If they who run, and leap, and 
throw the hammer, and we who enter into their 
zeal, could take to our hearts the fine lesson of 
their training, then would athletics have a value 
in college life far beyond the achievements 
eagerly recorded. To the athlete it is the goal 
that sets him inquiring, “What is bread, that I 
may spend my money for it?” and gives him 
fortitude to hold himself to its requirements. 
The goal! ah, that is the vital point ! What is 
our life’s goal? 

If it be true that with all our infirmities of pur¬ 
pose and of will the stamp of divinity is upon us, 
then must our goal be God ! Happy it is for us 
if in our youth there come moments of joy or of 
sorrow, or of responsibility, that give us even a 
fleeting sense of our kinship with the Divine—a 
heavenly vision, which, if it shine not steadily 
for us, may yet make real to us spiritual things 
that culminate in God. In this thought of living 
toward God is there a suggestion of isolation, of 


i6o 


Words by the Way. 


self-exaltation, chilling to the ardor of youth ? 
Tet it not be so. It may easily be that the 
engineer’s survey is a highway to God. All the 
busy places of the world, in commerce, in build¬ 
ing, in sowing and reaping, may be in the service 
of God. The occupations of women’s hands in 
the home, or in more public fields of labor, may 
all be in the service of God. For he needs us all 
as his aids. The sunshine and rain and frost 
bring to perfection his growing things; not less 
does he need the help of willing hearts and hands 
and feet to further his great plans. It is true in 
the races of the athletes toward their goal, it 
sometimes happens that there are those to whom 
the appearance of victory is more than honor, who 
“ foul ” their competitors by jostling them out of 
the course, and so come first to the goal. Thus, 
in the strife of the business world, there are men 
whose goal is the accumulation of money, who do 
not hesitate to “foul ’’ their business competitors 
and “drive them to the wall,” and push on in 
their own absorbing struggle for riches. They 


The Bread of Life. 


161 

may reach their goal. But money thus gained at 
the cost of other men’s success, cannot be turned 
into bread to build up the soul. It is vitiated in 
the getting. The law of gravity is absolute—it 
reports every added or subtracted grain. So the 
moral law is absolute—it knows no compromises. 
And the apparent victory of the athlete who 
jostles his fellow, and of the business man who 
drives his neighbor to the wall, is more than 
defeat. The eager reporter may publish far and 
wide the first-place medal of the athlete, and the 
many activities, beneficent it may be, of the man 
of wealth; but every false move of either, out of 
accord with God’s law of rectitude, by that much 
dwarfs and paralyzes his soul—leaves him starv¬ 
ing for that which is “ bread.” 

If the goal of all our endeavors is God, what 
shall we say, then, is the bread or the labor to 
bring us to this goal ? I believe it may be con¬ 
cretely expressed as the sincere purpose to do our 
life-work as an appointment from God; in a 
spirit of fellowship, of sympathetic service. It 
ii 


Words by the Way. 


162 

cannot be a life of seclusion,—of thinking upon 
God apart from our fellows. Every day’s sun¬ 
shine teaches us this. True, it is our conception, 
of the life of God, that like a king, he sits upon “ 
a great throne, jealous and awful, demanding 
homage and adulation from his children. Is it 
not a higher conception to think of God as the 
life of all that lives, shining in the sun, fructify¬ 
ing the seed; ripening the harvest; pervading 
the universe with himself till every remotest atom 
is vivified and “death is swallowed up in vic¬ 
tory;’’ illuminating all souls that open them¬ 
selves to the Divine Eight ? If we think of God 
as the unhasting and unwearying and beneficent 
worker at the center of all activity, then, to be in 
harmony with God, we too must be unhasting, 
unwearying, and beneficent workers in any ob¬ 
scure bit of the universe where our lot may fall. 

It is good to believe that God is our goal—that 
beneficent service is the bread of life to our souls 
—for if this be true, there is a place for every one 
of us from the least to the greatest,—no one need 


The Bread of Life. 


163 


fall out of the race. If this be true, we may find 
in beneficent service the standard by which to 
measure the value of life. We need not ask, Did 
he make a fortune; was he highly intellectual; 
was she very brilliant; did she shine in society, 
and did she lead the woman’s club ? Our inquiry 
becomes rather, Did he do his work for his em¬ 
ployer as zealously as if only his own interest 
were at stake; in his business successes did he 
make himself a strength to others struggling for 
success; did his intellectual attainments make 
him a centre of light; did the neighborhood glow 
with her happy shining; did her presence inspire 
with courage and high resolve and patient en¬ 
deavor ? If she did not lead the woman’s club, 
was her life an exposition of the beautiful thing 
womanhood may be ? 

Possibly, too, the acceptance of this standard 
of measurement of life’s values would do away 
with some things that threaten to make life a 
tragedy to the young and single-handed. Costly 
luxuries that insidiously establish their claim as 


164 


Words by the Way. 


necessities, will have no goading power to the 
young man or woman whose soul is 11 rich toward 
God.” Beauty, which the soul craves as the 
body demands bread, our Heavenly Father has ? 
made one of his constant ministers to us; and 
courtesy, that sweetener of all life’s relations, as 
with an enchanter’s rod, can touch to fineness 
the simplest furnishings of house and of person. 
That which is bread to the soul is attained with¬ 
out the stress that often puts the young man 
under terrible temptation, and makes the older 
man the slave of his work. 

Sympathetic service is easily translated relig¬ 
ious life. For sympathetic service is inspired by 
the desire to act with God; and whoso acts with 
God is bound by strong ties to his heart of hearts. 
The name of Jesus of Nazareth stands for service. 
The sick pressed upon him, even to touch the 
hem of his garment, for healing; the sinning 
bowed before him to receive his word of encour¬ 
agement, “Neither do I condemn thee, go and 
sin no more;” mothers brought their little chil- 


The Bread of Life . 165 

dren, that his benediction might fall upon them. 
And he said, “ I and my Father are one.” 

With this conception, which gives to life depth 
and breadth and richness inexhaustible, would 
I dower the “pilgrim scrips” of the two-score 
young men and women who have finished their 
college course, and must now exchange the safe 
shelter of sojourners for the hazards of pilgrims. 
These thoughts are not new—more than once 
during your college years they have been brought 
to your minds. There is scarcely any depart¬ 
ment of study which does not at some point sug¬ 
gest them. But they have pressed for utterance 
this once more, when the tender feeling of a 
“last time” may make the impress deep and 
indelible. I love to think how the world is to be 
enriched by the addition to its working force of 
these young men and women trained for service 
and eager to take their places. I rejoice in your 
courage and confidence. I hope you believe you 
can do the things for whose doing the world 
waits—for, you may. The humble candle of 


166 


Words by the Way . 


by-gone years has been gradually supplanted by 
brighter and brighter luminaries, and still the 
promise grows toward the perfection of light. 
And so it may be that the world waits your 
enthusiasm and your wisdom to make its dark 
places light, and its foul places sweet and clean. 
Hold fast your enthusiasm—the ozone of the 
moral atmosphere. So use it in right places, 
that its expenditure shall be its increa.se. If you 
see us, your elders, faltering and folding our 
wings, pity us; and yourselves, press on. If as 
students you have learned to be obedient to 
reasonable requirements, you will now find your¬ 
selves in training for that obedience to the “ law 
written upon your hearts,” which alone can 
make you a power for good. 

In the years before you, there may come 
periods of “storm and stress ” that will wake in 
your hearts the cry, “Calm me, my God, and 
keep me calm!” Then, it may be that the 
answer to your appeal will come to you in the 
memory of seasons of quiet “waiting upon God” 


The Bread of Life. 


167 


that have been a part of your college life; quiet, 
not always sweetly acceptable to youth, yet 
sometimes fulfilling its ministry of blessedness. 
And when all things are glad and happy for you, 
may it be the habit of your souls to dwell near to 
God. So, shall you “spend your money for that 
which is bread, and your labor for that which 
satisfieth! ’ ’ 
















Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 









































































